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A PROPHET OF THE REAL 




































































































































































































































































“She sprang up, hastily replaced the manuscript, and un- 
locked the door.” Page 172. 



A PROPHET OF 
THE REAL ♦ ♦ 


By 

ESTHER MILLER 

»v 

Author of 

“the sport of the gods,” etc., etc. 



NEW YORK 

J. F. TAYLOR .3 s COMPANY 
1902 


\*S 


COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
J. F. TAYLOR AND 
COMPANY, NEW YORK 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

SEP. 30 1902 


ICOPVRIOMT ENTflV 

Ct ASS fl^XXc No, 

x«r.r 7 & 

COPY B. 


Published May , /goa 


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V 


A PROPHET 

of the REAL 



/ 


V ERSCHOYLE glanced at the clock impa- 
tiently. It was a quarter to ten. Usually 
he began work at half-past nine, but his 
secretary had not come yet, and his brain was sim- 
mering with ideas which would not wait. 

He took a couple of turns round the room, 
stopped for a moment at the window to look down 
on the turmoil in Victoria Street, and became ab- 
sorbed in thought. The flat was high and quiet, 
and well furnished. Anthony Verschoyle had a cul- 
tivated taste, and the means of a successful modern 
novelist. The bronzes and pictures were admirable, 
the decorations and upholstery a soothing harmony 
in green. 


I 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

As for the man himself he seemed the natural 
component and creator of his environment. There 
was no trace of either effeminacy or brutality in his 
clean-shaven face. He was impressive. His voice 
had the note of authority and composure which pro- 
ceeds from self-reliance. His clear-cut features, 
medium colouring, grey eyes, and well-knit figure, 
were the materialization of a vigourous body and 
mind. 

For a week the book — his new book — had lain 
aside for lack of an inspiration. He had played on 
other strings meanwhile. Now — it had been born in 
the night, the missing idea he sought, and he felt that 
he could make headway again. 

Ten struck. Impatience mastered him, and he 
sat down at the writing-table alone. 

Just then an electric bell rang. A few moments 
later a girl came into the room. She was shabby, 
but neat, in black. She was white-faced, dark- 
eyed, thin, and twenty-two years old, with the ex- 
perience of fifty. Her manner was nervous this 
morning, which was unusual; ordinarily she had 
the composure of her class; but it might be that she 
was a little afraid of him, or of losing her place. 

“ I beg your pardon for being so late,” she said. 
“ I overslept myself.” 

“ Never mind,” said Verschoyle, politely. He 
got up without looking at her, intent upon the MS. 


\ 


2 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

he had been glancing through, and the girl took her 
place at the blotting-pad, and unscrewed her foun- 
tain pen. It was his habit to dictate to her in short- 
hand, which she converted into neat typing when 
he had gone out ; he could not endure the tapping of 
the machine. 

“ We’ll leave the letters,” he added, “ till by-and- 
by. They don’t press, and I want to get on with 
that book.” 

“ Yes,” she said, in toneless obedience. 

“Will you kindly read it through to me? I’ll 
make some alterations.” 

The girl began to read. Her voice was refined, 
and occasionally pathetic, but she endeavoured to 
restrain it to the monotony of a machine. She was 
the secretary; it was obvious that the fact was im- 
pressed upon her mind. Verschoyle did not employ 
her to declaim. 

The story was in its infancy. Only the first chap- 
ter, in fact, was written. So far anybody — almost 
anybody — might have created it, although it was the 
originality as well as the realism of Verschoyle 
which had given him his place among the first half- 
dozen novelists of the day. What he had portrayed 
was merely the meeting of an orphan girl working 
for her living in London, with a young city man of 
fair position, whose proposal of marriage she re- 
ceives with a gasp of thanksgiving, as the release 

3 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

from daily toil and strife for bread. There was no 
suggestion of love on her side, and a hint of mys- 
tery about the girl cropped up at the end of the chap- 
ter, to be explained probably, in the next. 

The author made a few amendments, and half- 
an-hour had passed by the time the last line was 
reached. 

“ ‘ She wondered if she had done right to accept 
him/ ” 

Verschoyle, who had been lying on the sofa, 
rose, and began to walk about the room. 

“ 4 She wondered if she had done right to accept 
him/ You see,” he continued, “ she is in a deuce 
of a predicament, poor girl! She has a secret and 
what she has to decide upon is, whether she owes 
more duty to him than to herself.” 

“ I see,” said the secretary. 

She looked surprised that he should trouble to ex- 
plain himself to her; he rarely did so; it was seldom, 
indeed, that he spoke to her at all except in the way 
of business. They had had no confidences in the 
three months that she had been with him, not the 
least intimacy; he was not the man to expand pro- 
miscuously, although he could be genial enough in 
genial company, and her reserve was of the aggra- 
vated kind which walks through life with lips grown 
thin from compression, and sombre eyes. To-day 
he was so pleased at overcoming a difficulty, that 

4 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

he broke through his usual reticence with a flush 
and a smile. 

“ Begin, please,” he said, and dictated : 

“ From the moment she had discerned that he 
would ask her to marry him one day, she had been 
pondering this question, but never so earnestly as 
now. She ought to tell him, but if she did she 
would lose him and the home he could give her. His 
was not a great mind. Nobody understood his 
limitations better than she. He would make her 
a kind husband, but his smug respectability would 
shrink from the secret which had lain, a hidden 
horror in her breast for years. God knows how she 
had suffered over it, and prayed that it might not 
drive her mad! This man had seemed to bring 
peace with him — peace and rest, but there was none 
for her. He was the apotheosis of all the suburban 
virtues, and she was the daughter of a murderess 
who had been hanged for her crime! ” 

The girl at the table started, and dropped her 
pen, and raised a bloodless face, quivering, hunted, 
aghast. 

“ It is the story of my life ! ” she cried.. “ How 
did you know ? ” 


s 


Chapter II 

■ JHE story of your life ! repeated Ver- 
schoyle, incredulously. 

“ Yes— all of it— all of it ! ” 

“ Of course I didn't know. What a remarkable 
coincidence ! ” 

The shock of surprise had almost taken his breath 
away. He gazed in a sort of stupefaction at the 
girl, who had risen and stood with her back against 
the table, grasping it, her cheeks white, her lips 
white, her dark eyes wild, dilated, her bosom pant- 
ing under her shabby gown. 

“ If I had told it to you, it could scarcely be 
truer. But I know more than you, clever as you 
are. It is here," — she struck her breast — “ the 
agony which you have only imagined, which I have 
felt ! Oh, the shame, the misery, the anguish of 
my life ! ” 

She stopped and sobbed. It was evident that 
she had forgotten where she was, that her self- 
consciousness, restraint, subservience of service 
were alike swept away by a torrent of emotion. She 
talked because she had to talk, and Verschoyle, 
6 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

watching her, wondered if he had never seen her 
before, or whether the smothered fire that he had 
fanned to flame had transformed an ordinary girl 
into the tragic muse, with her great eyes burning in 
her pale cheeks, her mobile lips, her white fore- 
head, her quivering throat and hands. 

“ Sit down in the arm-chair,” he said, with 
charming gentleness. “ Don’t cry. I am very 
sorry for you. It is most unfortunate that I should 
have stirred such painful memories. . . Would 
you like some brandy ? ” 

“ N— no.” 

She had sunk into the chair, her head bowed; 
.stricken, sobbing still. 

He stood before her, and his voice when he spoke 
again was tense. 

“ Is the affair with the man going on now? ” 

“ Yes, he proposed last night. That was why 
I slept badly, and was late this morning.” 

“You have accepted him?” 

She nodded. 

“ And he knows nothing? ” 

“ Nothing.” She wiped her eyes without looking 
up. “ It’s just like your tale. I don’t know what 
to do.” 

“Who are you? Tell me all about it.” 

“Do you remember the Durand case? It hap- 
pened a long time ago; I was only seven years old.” 

7 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I can’t recall it,” he said, in a low tone. “ What 
did she do? ” 

The girl rocked herself to and fro in blind agony. 

“ She was jealous of my father and she killed 
him.” 

“ Good Lord!” 

“ She was hanged. I knew all about it. A serv- 
ant took me to see the black flag flying over the gaol. 
I dreamed about it afterwards, and screamed in 
the night. I dream about it still. I have her por- 
trait taken with my father’s during their honey- 
moon. He was a very handsome man, and she was 
like I am now, only beautiful; the eyes, the mouth, 
the colouring are the same. . . . There was no 
money for me. A public subscription was raised, 
and I was sent to school till I was seventeen. I 
have been keeping myself since. I have never 
spoken about it to any one before, but you startled 
me — you startled me so.” 

“ Have you no relations or friends ? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ I am alone. At school I thought they whis- 
pered about me, and I used to hold aloof for fear 
of a snub. It was the same afterwards. Oh, you 
can’t realize what it is to be cut off from the world 
as I am ! When people are kind to me I think : ‘ If 
they knew who I was they would turn away ! ’ and I 
feel a hypocrite, and fear to make friends. I never 
8 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

forget. I don’t think that I have ever been happy. 
Sometimes it seems to me that I shall die if I can’t 
tell somebody what I feel; but I daren’t talk about 
it.” 

“ Go on,” said Verschoyle, thoughtfully, “ talk 
to me.” 

“ They say,” she whispered, “ that it isn’t pain- 
ful to be hanged; just a shock, and then — nothing. 
But what must she have felt in the days beforehand ? 
To have killed a man, her husband ! Wnat a horror 
must have been upon her — enough to drive her 
mad; what shame, what sickening fear! And she 
was going to die. There was the Afterwards to 
face. What has become of her ? ” 

“ Ah, there you raise a difficult question ! Are 
you religious ? ” 

“ I don’t know. I don’t go to church often, be- 
cause they talk about things that frighten me. Do 
you think they’ve met again? She loved him, you 
know; she must have loved him. Did he hate her, 
or did he forgive — or is it all nonsense, and was 
that the end ? ” She pushed her black hair from 
her brow feverishly. “ I lie awake at night think- 
ing it out till my brain swims and my flesh creeps, 
and I never seem to get any nearer the truth.” 

“ I think,” said Verschoyle, studying her, “ that 
you have lived too much alone. You were wrong to 
nurse these ideas in silence for so many years. It 

9 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

would have been better for you to have told every 
one you met.” 

“ No — no — no,” she cried, shrinking. “ I should 
have died of shame. I don't know how I have 
managed to talk to you like this. I suppose it is 
because you seem to understand. You won't betray 
me, will you? You won't think badly of me? It's 
such a terrible thing for a girl to have fastened on 
her.” 

“ Of course I won’t ‘ think badly ’ of you,” he 
answered. “ Why should I? You couldn't help it. 
I pity you with all my heart. But you ought to tell 
your lover.” 

“ He would give me up ! ” 

“ If he is worth his salt it won't make any dif- 
ference. He will only try to comfort you.” 

“ You say that,” she cried, “ but you don’t make 
the girl in your book believe it, and I know you 
mean her to lose him.” 

“ But my lover is a poor little conventional cad, 
bound to the chariot wheels of Mrs. Grundy.” 

“ And so is mine.” 

“ Will he be any loss, in that case? ” 

“ Oh, don't you understand ? ” she said, tearfully. 
“ You wrote it! What is to become of me? I 
have had such a dreary, lonely life; I am so poor. 
He is well off; he could give me a home, and he 
loves me. Nobody else loves me. He is the first 


io 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

man who has ever noticed me. I might never have 
another chance, and I might get ill and lose my 
work at any time; and what should I do when I 
grew old ? ” 

Verschoyle regarded her with half a smile, the 
first relaxation of humour; with a little curiosity 
too, of a different kind — a late interest in the po- 
tentialities of her youth and sex. 

“You do look for the worst, don’t you? 
Why should you not have another and a 
better offer by-and-by? You are only a young girl 
still.” 

She shook her head, which he noticed for the 
first time was small, well-shaped, well-set. A 
shadow brooded in her eyes. 

“ I am not attractive. I am too dull, too quiet, 
too sad. Men — most men — like gay women who 
amuse them; pretty, well-dressed women with par- 
ents and friends. Besides, I never meet anybody, 
and if I do I’ve no home to ask them to. I don’t 
know why George cares. He’s a nephew of the 
people where I board — not quite a gentleman, you 
know, but — he loves me. He’s my only chance. 
After all,” she said, defiantly, “ what is it to do 
with him who my parents were?” 

“ Has he asked you ? ” 

“ I said that my father was a gentleman. It’s 
true.” 


ii 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“Of course it is your own concern,” said Ver- 
schoyle. “ I can’t presume to influence you.” 

“ You think that I ought to tell him, though ! 
Of course you are right.” She was conventional 
again, suddenly — the girl, dull, decorous, subdued, 
who had passed in and out of his days unobserved. 
Even the touch of subservience returned. “ But 
before I came to you I was out of employment for 
weeks, and nearly all my money went. I was so 
frightened. You don’t know how difficult it is for 
a girl to get on. Do I suit you? Do you mean to 
keep me? You won’t turn me away, will you, if 
he doesn’t want any more to do with me ? ” 

“ No,” said Verschoyle, gently, “ I won’t turn 
you away. I think we are getting on very well, 
don’t you ? ” 

The girl rose. 

“You have been very kind to me to-day,” she 
murmured. “ I shall never forget. You must have 
thought me mad to burst out like that; but it has 
been such a relief to talk. I won’t take up any more 
of your time. Shall we begin to work ? ” 

“Do you feel like it?” 

Her lashes drooped. 

“ I don’t mind, I am here to work.” 

“ Go home, and see your lover, and tell me to- 
morrow what he says.” 

“You are sure that you can spare me?” 


12 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Yes. Have a glass of wine before you go.” 

He touched the bell. They both waited silently, 
eyeing each other sometimes. The girl sipped the 
wine as though she were not used to it. 

“ I wish you luck,” said Verschoyle, drinking 
himself. 

“ Oh, I know what it will be ! ” she answered, 
hopelessly “ Your book will come true.” 

“ Good-bye,” he said, and they shook hands for 
the first time in their lives. “ Mind you come to- 
morrow — and — and don’t fret more than you can 
help.” 

Her lips quivered. 

When she had gone, Verschoyle threw himself 
into an arm-chair, and wiped his face. 

“ Well, this is a new experience,” he mused. “ I 
have seen Bernhardt and Duse, but I don’t think I 
ever realized tragedy as keenly before. And what a 
tragedy! She never rose above the commonplace 
until to-day. I scarcely looked at her. She was the 
representative of a class, no more — a type, not a per- 
sonality. It is the difference, I suppose, between 
truth and art — or shall we say between art and a 
temperament combined with truth? A ploughboy 
would be a dumb repository. She has the sensi- 
tiveness of a photographic plate; every emotion is 
felt, reproduced: passion, tenderness, imagination. 
Grown to womanhood she lies awake, the child who 
13 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

saw the black flag flying, and asks herself if that 
husband and wife have met again. I should never 
have thought of that ! What a touch ! There’s life 
in that — the keystone of a character. Good God! 
how morbid she is ! Her white face, her black eyes 
and hair; the thinness of her, the nervous delicacy 
of her hands — all just as it should be. . . . I 
could not have drawn her half as well as she is 
made.” 

He rose and paced the room in the restlessness of 
excitement. It was as though the tragedy he had 
invented had materialized under his eyes. A ghost, 
illusive, indistinct, had turned to flesh and blood. 
He had wondered how to invent her, this girl of 
gloomy parentage, and he had only to describe. 
She was here as a model in his hand. 

He could not but realize what an opportunity 
of a lifetime this was for him. Chance had placed 
it in his power to write a book that should be such 
a human document as had never been written be- 
fore. And the subject appealed to him; he had 
chosen it; he was not being forced into an uncon- 
genial task for the sake of utilizing good material. 

“ It is strange that it should be now, while she 
is with me, that the idea should come,” he thought. 
“ The coincidence opens up an interesting problem. 
Is there anything in thought transference? Can 
14 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

her continual brooding on the one subject have 
affected me? ” 

He was intensely anxious to place his new im- 
pressions on paper. He hated the manual effort 
of writing, but it would be easier to do this part 
of the book without her. If some of the emotions, 
phrases, ideas, struck her as familiar afterwards, 
she would merely conclude that he had grafted them 
upon the character previously conceived. 

Flushed enthusiasm kept his pen moving for a 
couple of solid hours. If he lacked anything, most 
days, it was that fervour without which the novelist 
becomes a mere cold-blooded manipulator of words 
— a Frankenstein creating bodies without a soul. 
The curious episode of the morning had stirred 
him powerfully. The feeling was upon him that 
now, if ever, he was to surpass himself, and write a 
book that was worthy to live. 

When he stopped at last, it was not for want of 
material. A chilling recollection had brought dis- 
may to his face. 

The man might marry her after all! What a 
pity it would be — how deadly commonplace! Iden- 
tified with his heroine as she had become, he would 
find it difficult to contrive an artistic ending to his 
book. She should have a tragic history; at least 
her neurotic temperament should expand un- 
15 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

cramped. It would kill his imagination if she were 
to settle down into a suburban matron and the 
mother of babies. 

“ Although no doubt the less interesting she be- 
came, the healthier and the happier she would be, 
and I am brutal to hope that George's loyalty will 
prove unequal to the strain," he told himself. “ For- 
tunately or unfortunately, I have no influence in 
the matter, so my selfishness is not a crime. We 
shall see ! ” 

It was luncheon time, and a servant came to call 
him to the dining-room. His excitement had given 
him an appetite. It had been a morning to set 
the pulses of a man's life moving faster. He had 
gone to sleep over that story; he had felt uncertain 
of his deductions, depressed by misgivings; now he 
was in his best mood. 

What news would she bring to-morrow? He 
would not have believed a week ago that he could 
be so interested in this girl. 


16 


Chapter III 

A LICE DURAND lived at Notting Hill in a 
tall, shabby house where they took board- 
ers at a guinea a week. Verschoyle only 
wanted her in the mornings, however, so she was 
received for ten shillings in return for her services 
as “ lady help ” in the afternoons. As he paid her 
liberally, she was able to put by fifteen shillings a 
week for clothes, ’bus fares, and emergencies. In 
fact, she was better off than she had ever been, but 
experience had taught her the insecurity of every 
salary in this life. 

She reached home with a mixture of sensations: 
— the sickness of agitation and suspense, a shrink- 
ing consciousness that she had expanded to a 
stranger and a man who had certainly taken no 
pains before to gain her confidence or make him- 
self her friend. To her intense reserve this seemed 
a terrible thing to have done; although it had re- 
lieved her over-charged heart, and he had advised 
her conscientiously, she knew. She grew alter- 
nately hot and cold. How could she have unveiled 
her inmost soul to Anthony Verschoyle? She was 

n 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

not used to talking about herself. His unconscious 
hand had opened the floodgates of her soul. The 
impulse to put into words what she had been feeling 
with such hideous keenness all her life, had been 
too strong to resist. The artificial restraint had 
been broken down by the pent-up emotions of years. 
The girl had hidden her tragedy, crushed it in her 
breast till the agony of it had almost driven her 
mad. It was as though she had screamed at last. 

What was her lover going to say to her? She 
had no hope. If Verschoyle had not put her duty 
before her, she would have vacillated and tormented 
herself perhaps to the very eve of the marriage, 
and spoken then. It was better as it was. Love 
might have found a guilty happiness, for a few 
weeks, in the engagement; she did not love her 
fiance, so she had nothing to gain by prolonging 
the suspense. 

She was so tired of dependence, servitude, pov- 
erty. When she reached her own bedroom at the 
very top of the tall boarding-house, she took her 
things off and cast them down with a sort of 
passion. The means of escape was within her reach, 
and she must renounce it. 

“ It's hard,” she said, between her teeth, “ hard. 
Am I never to have a little comfort and happiness, 
a home of my own ? ” 

Her stormy eyes sought their own reflection in 

18 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the glass. A lock of black hair fell over her fore- 
head, accentuating its whiteness; her cheeks were 
colourless; her mutinous lips trembled still over 
the memory of that storm in Verschoyle’s study, 
and the anticipation of the interview to come. 

The prolonged sound of a gong mounted the 
well of the staircase. She washed her hands and 
tidied her hair hastily, and went down-stairs. 

Luncheon was on the table. A lady of uncertain 
age, with a golden fringe, was presiding over a 
cold leg of mutton, and a dish of curry — the mutton 
in another guise. There were only two or three 
women and an old man at the table. Most of the 
boarders were clerks who were absent during the 
day. 

“ You are home early,” remarked the hostess. 
“ How’s that?” 

“ Mr. Verschoyle didn’t want me any longer this 
morning.” 

Mrs. Wilson waved the carving-fork at the dishes. 

“ Which will you have, my dear?” 

The woman was vulgar but good-natured. She 
had taken Alice to the play in the pit occasionally, 
and once to Kempton Park races. It was on the 
latter occasion, in fact, that George Wilson had 
made the girl’s acquaintance. 

He was coming to dinner to-night, and she would 
be able to get her confession over then. Would he 
19 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

think it necessary to tell his aunt who she was? 
In any case she would lose the prestige which 
the engagement had conferred upon her in the 
boarding-house, where George Wilson with his 
smart city clothes and gay air was “ such a gentle- 
man.” 

Mrs. Wilson asked her a question twice before 
she heard it. She was wondering what Anthony 
Verschoyle, the cultivated, fastidious Oxford man, 
would think of the dirty tablecloth, the oleographs 
and “ rep ” furniture, Mrs. Wilson's golden 
“ front ” and slipshod English, and George Wilson 
when he was trying to tell a funny story. 

And yet she, who could see every shortcoming, 
every vulgarism in her fiance from the scented oil 
on his hair and the geranium in his button-hole, to 
his lamentable ignorance, trembled at the thought 
of losing him. They had not a thought in common ; 
his point of view on every subject was as “ impos- 
sible" as his summer clothes; he was no more her 
equal in refinement than in intellect. His sole merits 
were that he was fond of her, and could give her a 
home. 

But she had to be thankful for him — grateful 
that this pacha of Mincing Lane had condescended 
to throw the handkerchief, and to rehearse her mis- 
erable story in order to find phrases which would 
tell the truth yet shock him least, trembling the 


20 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

while with fear that he would not consider her good 
enough to be his wife ! 

A wild gleam came into the girl’s eyes; her breast 
heaved. In a passion of revolt against her fate, 
her crushed pride rose, and she felt inclined to fling 
his ring back to him without a word. Why should 
she apologize to him — cringe to him for what she 
was? Why should she humble herself to any man? 
It was he who was not good enough for her ! 

She wept again in her room afterwards. She 
hated the world, outcast that she was through no 
fault of her own. If only she had had money in 
her hands, and could afford to hold aloof, wrapped 
in the reserve of a defiant and despairing melan- 
choly. The humiliation of her dependence upon 
this man ate like vitriol into her soul. Her pride 
which had survived her tragic parentage, fought in 
her breast with her weariness of the life she led, 
its insecurity, the dread she had mentioned to Ver- 
schoyle of what her future might be if this one 
chance of marriage passed her by. 

When George came to dinner — a slim, sloping- 
shouldered young man, with an unwholesome com- 
plexion — he had tickets for the theatre. 

She sat out the Greek God , deaf and blind to the 
vulgar tinselled folly which kept her lover in a 
roar, postponing the evil moment in an agony of 
apprehension which made her despise herself. 


21 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

They entered a hansom to go home, and she 
shrank from the lamplight and the man’s familiar 
arm. All her carefully-rehearsed phrases had 
melted away. But the inevitable moment had come. 

“ I’ve something to tell you, George.” 

“ Eh, old girl?” 

“ My mother was hanged,” she said. 

George Wilson stared at her blankly. It took 
him a long time to grasp a new idea. In the present 
instance the idea was so startling that it produced 
an effect natural upon his order of mind. 

“ Oh, you are joking,” he said, with a feeble 
chuckle. “Your mother was hanged! That’s a 
good ’un, by Jove! ” 

“ I am not joking,” said Alice, steadily. 

“ I’ll tell aunt when we get to the house,” he 
said. “ Won’t it startle all the old ladies ! I say, 
what are you looking so glum for? I’m meant to 
laugh, ain’t I ? ” 

“ It’s not a joke,” repeated Alice. “ Oh, can’t 
you understand what it is costing me to tell you? 
I thought you ought to know before you married 
me.” 

The young man was silent for a moment. His 
face had grown bewildered and pale, and he stam- 
mered when he essayed to speak at last. 

“Do you — do you mean that it’s really true? — 
no humbug, you know ? ” 


22 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Haven’t I said so three times already ? She 
killed my father through jealousy, and she was 
hanged fifteen years ago.” 

“ What an awful woman ! ” 

The girl shrank. 

“ I suppose she was in a passion. It’s very ter- 
rible. But it isn’t my fault. / couldn’t help it.” 

A sullen flush of anger overspread Wilson’s pasty 
complexion. 

“ I’ve been badly treated,” he said. “ It’s been 
kept from me. I ought to have been told before.” 

“ Now you are angry,” she said, in a tone of 
despair. “ It was because I feared you would be, 
that I found it so difficult to confess. What is the 
use of resenting it on me? I am not responsible for 
what my mother did, and no worse for it surely ! ” 

“ The daughter of a murderess,” he muttered. 
“ Whatever would people say ! ” 

“ Why need anybody know ? ” she asked. “ It 
can be a secret between ourselves.” 

“ People always worm things out,” he said. 
“ Women watch like cats to pick holes in each 
other. I shouldn’t have a moment’s peace; besides 
— no, it’s impossible! You’ve deceived me. You’ve 
played a beastly low down trick on me, Alice, and 
I don’t feel called upon to overlook it.” 

The girl sat bolt upright and silent in the hansom, 
gazing straight before her; she felt hard rather 
23 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

than tremulous and pathetic. She had meant to 
support everything he chose to say meekly; but her 
mood after all was not meek. He was selfish, nar- 
row, cowardly, and she despised him. He had not 
a word of pity for her, only of reproach, and she 
would have choked if she had attempted to beguile 
him. 

“ I was led to believe,” continued George, with 
feebly vindictive passion, “ that you belonged to 
decent people, and all that, or of course I shouldn't 
have wanted anything to do with you. A man in 
my position looks to marry suitably — well; his peo- 
ple and friends expect it of him. You know that I 
asked most particularly, when we were first ac- 
quainted, who your parents were.” 

“ They were better born than yours, George.” 

A man of his stamp cannot quarrel in cold blood; 
he was working himself into a rage on purpose. 

“ Mine were respectable at any rate, and if you 
are going to throw my father’s china shop in my 
face,” he said, with unconscious humour and deep 
offence, “ the sooner we wish each other good-bye 
the better ! I can understand a girl in your position 
wanting to better herself, but I say again that I 
have been grossly taken in, and I’m quite justified 
in ’aving no more to do with you.” 

“ Very well,” she said. “It is as you like, of 
course.” 


24 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ If I had been told at the very beginning,” he 
said, “ it would have saved me a good deal of un- 
happiness. I was very fond of you, Alice.” 

“Were you?” said the girl. 

She laughed faintly, and he glared. 

“ Yes,” he repeated, “ I was very fond of you, 
and looking forward to be settled comfortably in 
a decent and respectable ’ome. You’ve deceived 
me, and aunt, and all the people in the house. I 
wonder you weren’t ashamed to do it, seeming so 
open too. It was very artful. You are evidently not 
the girl I fancied you.” 

“If I had told you when you proposed, would 
you have married me?” she asked. 

“ Er — I don’t know,” he stammered. “ I might 
have done so. . . . It isn’t exactly a pleasant 
thing to think that one’s wife’s mother committed a 
murder! There may be a wax image of her in the 
Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s ” — he 
called it Twoswords — “ for all I know ! A nice 
thing for a fellow in my position to think of! In 
justice to myself, I couldn’t, Alice. We’ve had a 
good time together, and I thought you were a 
deuced nice girl, but I really can’t. One must draw 
the line somewhere.” 

She had been pulling off her glove while he spoke. 

“ Here is your ring back,” she said. 

“Oh!” He was going to say “Never mind, 
25 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

keep it,” in a burst of generous emotion, but 
checked himself. It had cost him fifteen pounds, 
and she had really treated him very badly. He 
took it sourly and put it in his waistcoat pocket. 
“ Thanks.” 

An awkward pause followed. 

“And I let you kiss me,” she murmured. 

He did not understand her at all. Of course he 
had kissed her; they had been engaged. He wished 
the drive was over. He could not leave her in the 
middle of it very well, and she made him uncom- 
fortable, sitting beside him like a sphinx with her 
tight lips and stony eyes. 

“ You need not return the presents I’ve given 
you,” he jerked out, at last. 

“ You are very generous.” 

“ I don’t know whether you are trying to be sar- 
castic,” he replied. “If you are it’s most unbecom- 
ing and unnecessary under the circumstances. I 
hope,” he added, “ that you won’t take too much to 
heart anything I have said. It is natural, I think, 
that I should feel bitter.” 

“Need we talk about it any more?” she said, 
impatiently. “ You don’t consider me good enough 
to be your wife, and I am rather glad now the 
climax has come. We were not suited to each 
other. I doubt if we should have been happy in 
any case.” 


26 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ You didn't seem to have any qualms formerly. 
I am afraid it is a case of sour grapes, my dear ! ” 

She withered him with a glance, and the cab 
stopped. 

“ Thank goodness ! ” she exclaimed. “ Are you 
coming in ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Good-bye, then,” she said, relieved. 

“ Good-bye,” he said, sulkily. 

They shook hands, and the girl got out, leaving 
him in his seat. 

The cab drove off as she admitted herself with 
her latch-key. There was a light still burning in 
the dining-room, and Mrs. Wilson came out. She 
was in a crude mauve silk blouse, which she wore 
for dinner, with plenty of fluttering ribbons about 
it, and gold buttons, some of which were missing. 

“ Where's George ? ” 

“ He wouldn't come in.” 

“ I thought he would have 'ad a bit of supper,” 
said Mrs. Wilson. “ There's some cold steak-pie, 
and baked custard, if you'd like it.” 

“ I am not hungry, thanks,” said Alice. “ I am 
tired. I shall go straight to bed.” 

“ Did you enjoy yourself? ” 

“ Not particularly. Good-night.” 

Mrs. Wilson's good-liumoure!d laugh followed 
the girl up-stairs. 


n 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I believe you and George have been having a 
tiff,” she said. “ What silly creatures lovers are ! ” 

Alice went to her room, and began to undress. 
There was a pathetic suggestion of poverty in the 
flickering candle-light. She was a well-formed girl, 
but much too thin. All her life she had fretted and 
fevered her soul almost out of its envelope of flesh. 
She hugged herself in her arms, and looked at the 
saucers in her shoulder-blades, and at her hollow 
eyes. 

Yes, the brief episode of her engagement had 
ended just as she had anticipated, only that he had 
been even more vulgar and unkind. When George 
Wilson became excited he lost command over his 
aspirates, which were not hereditary; he had dis- 
tinctly said “ ’aving,” and “ ’ome,” and the Cockney 
intonation which irritated her had never been more 
marked. Nothing else could have helped to steady 
her nerves so successfully. His vulgarity, empha- 
sized by emotion, had robbed her sordid tragedy of 
half its bitterness. It had helped her to realize, as 
even she had never done before, how far apart they 
were in spirit, and how insufferable even the “ com- 
fortable ’ome” he had alluded to might become 
when shared with him. 

She was glad that she had not cried. She would 
have despised herself for ever if she had stooped 
to beg of that worm. And it was not likely that 
28 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she would have gained anything by it. She had 
little of the witchery of the happy woman. Self- 
distrust, morbid self-consciousness, were ingrained 
in her. It was only under the sun of George Wil- 
son's admiration that she had been able to emerge 
from her reserve, and directly he frowned she had 
shrunk back again. The tears, the entreaties, which 
might have enabled some girls to keep him, were 
impossible to her. She had no faith in her own 
powers of fascination, although she did not under- 
rate her worth. Anxious as she had always been 
to marry, she had never made the faintest advance 
to any man. George Wilson had taken the initiative 
entirely. If a millionaire, who was also a hero of 
romance, had been within her reach, she would not 
have stretched out a finger towards him. She was 
as mute and helpless, in certain respects, as though 
she were petrified. 

The reflection of her sallow face in the glass, her 
great eyes, re-aroused her pity for herself. The 
storm which had shaken her that morning was 
threatening to return. 

“ It isn't sour grapes ! I wouldn't take him now 
if he went on his knees to me ! " 

A hot tear rolled down her cheeks, and fell on 
the “ honeycomb " cloth. 

She brushed out her long black hair with a sweep- 
ing motion, and shook it about her shoulders. She 
29 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

looked like an elf. The candle was spluttering. 
She had been extravagant with it last night, and 
Mrs. Wilson would not allow more than two a 
week. 

When she had got into bed, she sat hunched up 
for a while under the covers, with her thin hands 
clasped round her knees. 

“ I suppose I shall never marry now,” she 
thought. “ It isn’t likely that another man will 
fancy me. And I don’t think that even for a home, 
I could stand a second George Wilson. I wonder 
what they’ll say down-stairs about it? Of course I 
shall have to go. He is sure to tell his aunt all 
about it, and I am not going to be gaped at by these 
people.” 

It was the old business again. The shameful 
secret of her birth had hounded her down. She 
would have to take a room, and live on the twenty- 
five shillings Verschoyle gave her, until she could 
find another cheap boarding-house willing to take 
her in at half-price in return for her services. She 
was accustomed to all the shifts of shabby genteel 
poverty already. No girl of her. age in London 
was more capable of getting enough to eat on a 
few shillings a week. 

Fortunately she had been able to put by four 
pounds since she had been with Verschoyle, so that 
30 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

was something to fall back upon. She had often 
found herself in a worse plight. 

Gone were her dreams of comfort and independ- 
ence. The precarious existence of a woman who 
cannot expect to earn more than enough for her 
immediate necessities, confronted her again. She 
began to cry a little by-and-by in the dark — miser- 
ably, not passionately. George Wilson had been 
better than nothing after all. He had made much 
of her, and given her some position in his own set, 
and she had had the restful consciousness of a settled 
future to look forward to. 

It was a long time before she fell asleep, and 
whenever she woke during the night an oppression 
on her chest reminded her that something unpleas- 
ant had happened, and she moaned as she turned 
over and stretched her limbs. 

In the morning she found herself looking even 
less attractive than usual. Her eyelids were heavy, 
and her complexion leaden. 

“ I might be fifty,” she commented. “ I wish I 
were. Then I shouldn’t have so many years to look 
forward to.” 

She had intended to rise early, and pack before 
she went out, but she had overslept herself after 
her feverish night, and only finished dressing 
hurriedly as the gong sounded for breakfast. 

3i 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

The usual eggs and bacon and smoked haddock 
were on the usual grubby table-cloth; Mrs. Wilson 
was pouring out coffee and tea, and Miss Gribble, 
the eldest lady boarder, was adjusting her false teeth 
before she began her breakfast. Everything was 
the same, and yet it was strange to Alice Durand. 
She was going away; this was the last time she 
would see it; that made all the difference. She 
meant to come back to lunch, tell Mrs. Wilson, 
after she had packed, that her engagement to 
George was broken off, and that she wished to leave, 
settle her bill, and go at once. What a cackling 
there would be in the boarding-house ! She could 
hear everything that Miss Gribble and Miss Bel- 
mont would have to say on the subject. It did not 
matter. She would never see any of these people 
again. 

She was so sensitive about her parentage that 
there was always a certain relief to her in shaking 
off the trammels of familiarity, and going among 
total strangers. For a time, until she became inti- 
mate with her new associates, and the old burden of 
hypocrisy and reserve sank upon her shoulders 
again, she felt a sense of freedom which was almost 
exhilaration. While people were utter strangers to 
her, she did not feel called upon to tell them who 
she was; it was when they began to give her con- 
fidence for her own secrecy that the struggle began 
32 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

between the natural honesty of her disposition and 
the agonizing shame of her birth. For this reason 
she always avoided contracting intimate friendships 
with other women. The affection of one of her 
own sex could not drag her out of her morbid iso- 
lation. She did not think that women ever cared 
for each other very much, and her own indifference, 
which she did not attempt to conceal, no doubt 
helped to confirm her in this view. There was 
nothing spontaneous and lovable about this girl, 
who had felt the stain of blood upon her brow since 
she was seven years old. 

“ Mr. Verschoyle is sure to ask me what George 
said,” she thought, as she buttoned her shabby 
black jacket. “ He won’t be surprised. I wonder 
what he thought of me for breaking down and mak- 
ing such a fool of myself yesterday ! ” 

She coloured once more in recalling the unusual 
emotion she had displayed. It made her shrink 
from meeting him again. 


33 


Chapter IV 

T HE novelist was awaiting her with a good 
deal of impatience, as a matter of fact. 
He had thought about her more during the 
last twenty-four hours than he had done during the 
three months that she had been with him, or than 
he would have done in three years under ordinary 
circumstances. She had become the heroine of his 
book; he had created her. 

A great deal depended upon the news she brought 
him to-day. If George Wilson remained true to 
his plighted word, his whole rendering of a certain 
type would be proved incorrect, and he would find 
himself confronted by a disconcerting blank wall 
of fact at the very outset of his imaginary per- 
spective. 

“ It is because life is full of inconsistencies,” he 
muttered, “ that the novelist so often fails. He 
takes a certain character which is a type, not an 
individual, and makes him act as he ought to act, 
as he would &ct if he were a machine. But all sorts 
of subtle influences and conditions play upon the 
real individual, and blow him about like a weather- 


34 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

cock. I feel that I am' entirely wrong, and that 
George Wilson is staunch ! ” 

When Alice came in — he had been listening for 
her ring as though he were her lover — a glance at 
the girl's languid face told him that his last suppo- 
sition was incorrect. 

“Well?” he asked, eagerly. “Have you seen 
your lover ? ” 

“ Yes. You were quite right. The engagement 
is broken off.” 

“ Ah!” 

He tried hard to conceal his satisfaction as she 
went to the writing-table. Her voice was flat, tone- 
less, he noticed, and she seemed to have no intention 
of telling him any more. She removed the top sheet 
of the blotting-pad, which was worn out, rearranged 
her sheets of foolscap in readiness for his dictation, 
and took up her pen. Yesterday might have been a 
dream. It was difficult to believe that she was 
capable of ordinary emotion, much less the passion 
she had displayed. 

Verschoyle walked to the fire-place, and poked the 
fire to make time for himself. He glanced at the 
long, low glass, framed in beaten copper, which 
adorned the mantelpiece, and found her waiting for 
him, still apathetic as a machine in the writing chair. 
He could not stand it; he was devoured by curi- 
osity. 


35 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ How did he do it ? ” he asked, abruptly. 

“As you expected/' she replied. “You seem 
to know him as well as though you were acquainted. 
He was very indignant that it had been kept from 
him ; he felt that he had been taken in, and declined 
to have anything more to do with me. He pre- 
tended at first that it was only because I had de- 
ceived him about it so long that he cared, but he 
admitted afterwards that he couldn't have married 
me anyhow. He had his position to consider, and 
one had to draw the line somewhere.'' 

The novelist, who had dropped into a chair, closed 
his eyes involuntarily, with a luxurious feeling of 
self-satisfaction. The girl scribbled on the blotting- 
pad; she drew ugly faces, and gibbets and skeletons 
hanging on them. Her abstractions never led her 
pen to flowers, and things of beauty. 

Verschoyle broke the silence again. 

“ Do you feel bad about it? " 

“ I don’t think so. I never disliked him so much. 
He was such a — a cad,” she said. “ I noticed his 
accent, and phraseology, and his whole tone, and 
comforted myself.” 

“ You are fastidious, eh? ” 

“ Yes, but it doesn't pay. Of course I should 
have been glad enough to get him; I’m not giving 
myself airs. He is as good as any one I shall ever 
get.” 

36 


v 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ But you didn’t, in your heart, consider him 
good enough, did you ? ” 

“No . . . I never expect to get what I want; 

how can I, in my position ? I don’t get a chance of 
mixing, on terms of equality, with gentlemen. As 
a matter of fact, I don’t suppose one woman in a 
hundred in any station of life is really satisfied with 
the man she marries. If she is foolish, or proud, she 
tries to think she is — or to persuade other people 
that she is ; her vanity demands it. I don’t believe in 
love matches. The man wants the woman, and the 
woman, in nine cases out of ten, accepts the man 
because she wants to get married, and nobody else 
has asked her.” 

“ You are a bitter philosopher for your age,” he 
said. 

“ I have cause to be,” she replied. “ I am afraid 
I am wasting your time, Mr. Verschoyle.” 

“ No,” he said, “ I like to hear you talk. It is 
so rarely that a girl, or even a woman, will discuss 
these subjects with a man.” 

But her brief animation was over. Her lips 
snapped again, and once more she sat, pen in hand, 
waiting for him. 

He dictated half-a-dozen letters, and a short story 
which he had promised to a magazine. She was as 
careful and attentive as usual throughout the morn- 
ing. If she had not expanded yesterday, he would 

37 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Have been unable to discern that there was anything 
special upon her mind to-day. She was a curious 
study. That rigid self-command, those wild, fitful 
sparks of passion which lighted her eyes at rare 
moments, stimulated the novelist's thirst for better 
knowledge of this daughter of a blood-stained love. 
He had never looked at her before with any con- 
sciousness; he watched her now with the closeness 
of an absorbing interest, and could scarcely remove 
his gaze from her face. Once their eyes met, and a 
faint colour came into her cheeks. She was a girl 
after all; he had been rather brutal. 

“ Where do you live ? ” he asked her brusquely, 
when the morning’s work was over, and she rose to 

go- 

She stared at him in surprise. The interest in 
her that he had begun to display troubled and em- 
barrassed her. She was not used to being consid- 
ered interesting by a man who did not leer or 
squeeze her hand. Her reply was unwilling. 

“ I am living at Notting Hill at present, but I 
am about to move.” 

“ Is there anything I can do for you ? ” asked 
Verschoyle, rather bluntly for a man of tact. “ Do 
you want any money ? ” 

Her face flamed. She turned away hastily. 

“ No, thank you, Mr. Verschoyle.” 

38 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“All right. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he 
said. 

When she was gone, he frowned and pulled his 
moustache. 

“ A girl of her class is always so suspicious, if 
she is straight. What motive did she imagine that 
I had beyond pure kindness? Have I ever taken 
the least notice of her before? She is very straight 
though — and with some ideas in her head.” 


39 


Chapter V 

A LICE carried out the programme she had 
arranged. She packed all her things and 
was quite ready to go before she said a 
word to Mrs. Wilson about it, and then had it all 
out with that lady in her own particular back room. 
Mrs. Wilson was highly indignant. 

“ Your quarrels with George Wilson have noth- 
ing to do with me,” she said, “ and you can’t go till 
I’ve found somebody else. I’m not anxious to keep 
you against your will, don’t think it, but I’m not 
going to ’ave the house upset any more just as a 
new cook’s coming in, and all. It won’t poison 
you to stay till the end of the week.” 

“ I can’t,” said the girl, obstinately. “ I’ve ar- 
ranged to go now, and must go.” 

“ You are an ungrateful hussy, Alice Durand, 
and I am sorry I ever ’ad anything to do with 
you. George is well rid of a bad bargain.” 

Alice called a cab herself, helped the cabman 
to drag down her boxes, and drove to Charing 
Cross Station, where she deposited her things while 
she went to look for a room. 

40 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


She knew London, and the cheap localities, and 
by five o’clock was installed in a bleak, barren little 
bedroom in the roof of a house near Russell Square. 
It was rather expensive, because it was a decent 
house, and the landlady was willing to get her 
breakfast and supper, providing she had her dinner 
out. The dinner would often consist of a cup of 
cocoa and a bun, no doubt, but perhaps she would 
soon be able to find another boarding-house. 

The next day was Saturday, and she had a holi- 
day on Saturday; Verschoyle usually went away for 
week-ends. She employed it in going to the agents 
and answering advertisements. She did not find 
exactly what she wanted; but somebody offered her 
a place as governess-companion in Siam. To accept 
it would mean to leave England for years, perhaps 
for ever, but there was nothing to keep her at home. 
She had no relations, no friends; an unhappy past to 
look back upon, a hopeless future staring her in 
the face. As usual, she regarded the proposal 
practically. English women would be rare and 
thought much of in a country like Siam. Anything 
was better than the sordid, struggling existence 
which was all she could expect here. She might 
marry there. The wages offered were good, too. 
She would be able to save money, which would be a 
great consideration if no matrimonial prospects ap- 
peared. 


41 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She asked for leave to think it over till Monday, 
but had already almost made up her mind to accept. 

Sunday in London is never a particularly cheerful 
day. Alice, accustomed to the “ life ” of the Not- 
ting Hill boarding-house, found it even more dreary 
than usual. Last Sunday she had had a substantial 
dinner at any rate, and George Wilson had come to 
take her for a walk, and they had gone as far as 
Oxford Street, and had tea at the Vienna Cafe, 
and ridden home outside an omnibus. His conver- 
sation, it is true, had not entertained her; but she 
had felt in the world, part of it; other girls with 
their young men had adorned the streets, and she 
had been one of them. To-day she was deserted. 
Nobody cared about her. She had not even a book 
to read, although it was questionable whether she 
would have read it if she had. The intense dreari- 
ness of the Sabbath in a lodging-house bedroom 
weighed her spirits, always near zero, to the dust. 
The handful of red coals half lost in a desert of 
ashes at the bottom of the grate, the dirty muslin 
window curtains framing a perspective of London 
chimney-pots and leaden sky, the silence which 
reigned among the roof tops, completed her mis- 
ery. When a drizzling rain began to fall, the girl 
huddled herself in the greasy arm-chair and cried. 

“ Oh, I shall go to Siam,” she said. “ I can't 
bear it.” 


42 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

It seemed rather a reckless thing to go to the 
other end of the world to live with people she had 
never seen — a friend was engaging her; but she 
felt inclined to be reckless : anything was better than 
London in poverty, friendlessness and mid-winter. 

“ What does it matter what becomes of me? ” she 
asked herself. “ If I can’t remain with them, and 
am obliged to give notice before the stipulated three 
years are up, I shan’t be worse off than I am here. 
There will always be a river handy.” 

Her black eyes glowed fiercely through the tears. 

She began to think, presently, about Mr. Ver- 
schoyle and his new book: chiefly about him. 
Probably he was at the seaside to-day, where the 
sun was shining, comfortably ensconced in the 
Grand Hotel; or perhaps he had gone to visit some 
of his friends, who all seemed to possess carriages 
and country seats. People who could buy every- 
thing they wanted for themselves always knew 
plenty of other people anxious to give them every- 
thing for nothing. This was one of the truisms of 
life which made Alice, who, having nothing, re- 
ceived nothing, very bitter. She bore Verschoyle 
no malice, however. He was a clever man, of 
whom she stood a little in awe, not more on account 
of his intellect than of that air of culture and good 
breeding which made her realize her own deficien- 
cies so painfully. He had been kind to her the other 

43 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

day, too, over that coincidence of the book. She 
hoped he would find another secretary who would 
take as much interest in his work. 

She thought she would make her own tea this 
afternoon. The singing of a tin kettle on the hot 
embers would suggest an atmosphere of homeliness 
and comfort which did not exist; with a little 
trouble, too, it might be possible to brown a slice of 
toast. 

Her economy was painful. She measured the 
tea out of the caddy with the greatest care. If 
she had felt rich yesterday, she would have bought 
herself a sweet cake of some kind as she used to do 
when she was in lodgings formerly, but a fit of 
hoarding, the offspring of terror, was on her, and 
she was afraid to spend a penny more than was 
necessary. The delicacy of her own face in the 
glass had accentuated her usual fear of illness; she 
was wiry despite the slightness of her build; but 
this affair with George Wilson had upset her, and 
she remembered how easy it was to “ take some- 
thing ” when one was run down. 

“ Yes, I will go to Siam,” she said again. 

She went to bed at eight o’clock, because there 
was nothing else to do, and she was cold and 
miserable. 

Verschoyle’s study, the next morning, looked in- 
sultingly luxurious. It was empty, and as she stood 

44 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

on the hearthrug waiting for him, she wondered 
what he intended his heroine to do after her lover 
gave her up; would she go to Siam also, or would 
she remain in London, a prey to poverty, loneliness 
and despair? 

“ I suppose he has never seen a bedroom like 
mine,” she thought. “ In the interests of art, I 
ought to give him a description of it, and of my 
battered tea-kettle, and the hole in my slippers, and 
the cracked looking-glass. Does he know what it is 
really like to live on a guinea a week in London ? ” 
she wondered, with a flicker of passion. “ He 
writes and imagines, but he can’t know. He has 
never felt it. He has always been rich.” 

When chance brought Verschoyle in a moment 
later, she hated him for the architype of her antithe- 
sis — prosperity and ease. He moved across his own 
Persian carpet as though the world belonged to him. 
His well-cut clothes, and white cuffs and hands, his 
smooth hair, the poise and turn of his head, all 
irritated her. How dared he write about poverty, 
and what a woman of her class felt! The oceans 
of all the universe rolled between them. He could 
no more put himself in her place than she could put 
herself in his. 

He was very handsome. . . . 

The girl’s gaze drooped. There was a sullen 
thumping in her breast, as though her heart were 

45 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

resenting the unseen authority which bade it beat. 
Why was she made to live when she had nothing at 
all, and there was so much that she wanted ? 

“ Good-morning,” she said hastily, in response 
to his greeting. “ Mr. Verschoyle, will you please 
to find another secretary? I wish to leave at the 
end of the week.” 

“ Oh ! how’s that? Aren’t you satisfied? ” 

“ Quite, thank you,” she replied. “ But I am 
going to Siam.” 

“ You are going to Siam ! ” 

“To live with a family as governess-companion,” 
said Alice. 

Verschoyle sank into the arm-chair on the hearth- 
rug, and looked at her. 

“ Siam,” he said, slowly, “ is a long way off. 
What is the idea ? Have you any reason to suppose 
you will like it when you get there ? ” 

“ N — no. Anything must be better than Lon- 
don.” A liquid note entered her voice, and her 
fingers interlaced nervously. “ I am so tired of 
London,” she said. 

“ Who are the people you are going with ? Do 
you know anything about them? Are they in 
London now ? ” 

“ No, I have seen a friend.” 

“ A man or a woman ? ” 

“ A man — a merchant in the city. He offered 

46 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

first-rate references. I think they must be people 
in a good position and well known.” 

“ Are they to pay your passage out ? ” 

“ Yes. I could not pay it myself. I have to sign 
an agreement to remain there three years. If I 
wish to leave at the end of the three years, or if 
they give me notice at any time, they are obliged 
to send me home, but not otherwise.” 

“ But suppose you don’t like them ? ” 

“ I should have to put up with it. Of course 
people can’t be expected to pay my expenses out, 
unless I undertake to stay with them some time.” 

“ It’s rash,” he said. “ You may be very misera- 
ble. I don’t believe in girls going abroad, especially 
to semi-civilized countries, to take situations except 
with personal friends or through mutual recom- 
mendations. It may sound all right on this side, but 
you don’t know what you may be going to. Take 
my advice and stay at home.” 

“ I have no home.” 

“ You are used to London,” he replied, impa- 
tiently. “ It seems to me that you are better off 
here than you would be elsewhere.” 

“ It’s the worst place possible to be poor in,” she 
said. “I’ve had to leave my boarding-house on 
account of George Wilson, and I’m living in one 
room in a lodging-house. It’s sickening. I must 
have a change.” 


47 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Even if it be for the worse? ” 

“ Yes/' said the girl, with an obstinate indrawing 
of her lips. “ I dare say I shall get on well enough 
in Siam. I’ll risk it anyhow. If I come to grief, 
what does it matter? Nobody cares.” 

“ I think you are foolish,” said Verschoyle. 
“ However — you know your own business best.” 

He set to work, and she sank into the automatic 
register of his words once more. 

It was her own life, herself, that he was portray- 
ing; she knew that well enough; the fruit of each 
of their conversations, and all she had told him, was 
ruthlessly utilized. Either it did not occur to him, 
absorbed as he was in the artistic value of his 
subject, that there was anything brutal in thus mak- 
ing her the instrument of her own dissection, or 
else he did not care; and the passiveness of a spirit 
trained to obedience in the hard school of poverty, 
kept her pen moving with mechanical speed. But 
a germ of resentment was beginning to swell in 
her breast. She was alive, and he was gazing at 
her through a microscope, even unto her very soul. 
Her flesh crept as though she were naked under 
his eyes; he described her scene with George Wil- 
son, and her nostrils contracted and she breathed 
through her teeth. When he gave her own reflec- 
tions afterwards, renewed wonder at his insight, and 
shame, brought the blood to her cheeks: he might 
48 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

almost have been in her room to see her alternate 
anger and tears. 

She put her pen down. It was too painful to be 
borne. Her heart was beating painfully; her lips 
were trembling. 

“ Are you tired?” asked Verschoyle, abruptly, 
stopping in his usual perambulations. 

Habit was stronger than resentment ; she had had 
so many causes for complaint in her lifetime that 
necessity had forced her to conceal. It was true that 
she was about to leave, but she feared to offend him 
still. 

She stretched her hand as though she had had the 
cramp, shook her head silently, and took up the 
pen again. 

Verschoyle continued. Hers was the central fig- 
ure of his book; nevertheless he was not thinking 
about her in a personal sort of way. Photography 
is not art; he had to choose his matter, to eliminate, 
to touch up a situation or an emotion when it lacked 
poignancy or the restraint which is sometimes the 
difference between tragedy and melodrama. 

The whole morning was a torture to her. En- 
dowed by nature and circumstances with more than 
usual sensitiveness, she flinched at every phrase 
which struck home. She, who had been so reserved, 
so secretive all her life, saw her thoughts and in- 
most emotions written down for the world to read. 


49 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

That the world would not know her name was no 
comfort. He knew. She was glad she was going 
to Siam; she was glad she would never see him again 
when this week was over. She even wondered how 
she had dared to face him, after telling him so much. 
He had seemed sympathetic at the time; she had 
liked him better than before; she was beginning to 
hate him now. He showed so plainly that he cared 
no more about her than that she was useful to him. 
Her sense of aloofness from every other human 
being was increased by his artistic egotism. A wild 
animal which understood that it was being kept 
in captivity for the populace to stare at, might feel 
as she felt. Her mute anger grew till she thought 
she must choke. 

Nobody cared for her, nobody protected her, no- 
body studied her. She was only supposed to have 
“ feelings ” when they were useful ; otherwise she 
was to be a machine worked by the lever of twenty- 
five shillings a week. 

The clock struck one. Verschoyle’s flow of nar- 
rative was abruptly checked by the secretary, who 
rose at once. Usually she did not think of moving 
till he dismissed her, but desperation made her 
defiant. 

Verschoyle, who had lost himself for some hours 
in composition, came to the surface with a sharp 
glance at the girl. 


50 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

/ 

“ I suppose I shall have to look for another sec- 
retary if you persist in going to Siam.” 

“ Yes,” said Alice, indifferently. 

“ I’ll raise you to thirty-five shillings a week if 
you'll stay. You suit me.” 

It was a princely offer. She was not tempted in 
the least, however; she was wounded and insulted, 
and still more wounded because he did not know it. 

" No, thank you,” she said, sullenly, her face 
averted, as she tidied the table with her usual pre- 
cision. “ I don’t care to remain in London.” 

“ You’ll regret it.” 

“ Perhaps. Good-morning, Mr. Verschoyle.” 

“ Oh, good-morning,” he said, openly annoyed. 


51 


Chapter VI 

A LICE put on her things in the square hall of 
the flat, where a fire burned all day in ex- 
travagant luxury. Her lips were tightly 
compressed, her dark brows were drawn down. 
That she should have lived to refuse an offer of 
thirty-five shillings a week for a few hours’ work a 
day ! She might live comfortably on that, and save 
a little besides; thirty-five shillings a week presented 
to a girl in her position, a state of existence rising 
out of the Slough of Despond, as represented by a 
lodging and enough to eat as long as nothing hap- 
pened, into one of comparative affluence. She was 
glad that she had refused, all the same. It was 
not for her services that he had asked her to stay; 
he could get secretaries by the thousand for a 
guinea a week; he wanted the model to his hand. 

The girl stuck the pin in her hat viciously, and 
went down-stairs putting on her gloves. She had 
a mind to send word to-morrow that she was ill, 
and not come back again. Every day he would 
embarrass her more. Only he would not pay her if 
52 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she stayed away, and she did not want to break into 
her four pounds for board and lodging; it was all 
she had for her outfit for Siam. As it was she 
would land with nothing in her purse in a strange 
country among strange people, and conditions which 
she might find insufferable. Verschoyle’s warning, 
although prejudiced by self-interest, no doubt, re- 
curred to her with a sickly pang. She might find 
it impossible to remain twenty-four hours with her 
unknown employers, and then what would she do? 
She was certainly mad to refuse his offer. A girl 
with her living to earn had no right to proper pride; 
even yet she had not learned to cringe and efface 
herself enough. 

Obstinacy was one of her most marked traits, 
and she had no intention of asking leave to change 
her mind. She was not going to make herself a con- 
venience to him; what did she care about his book 
or him? He had never seemed to recognize that 
she was a human being with a sex until she had been 
startled into the betrayal of a secret which inter- 
ested him. 

She had a mutton pie and a cup of tea at a cheap 
shop for her lunch, and sat over it until it was time 
to keep an appointment she had made concerning 
the situation in Siam. The little tables were all 
crowded with clerks, and other shabby girls like her- 
self, some with anxious faces, some with frivolous 

53 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

faces, and bright colours in their hats; some whose 
faces expressed no more than ignorance, and a vacu- 
ous folly. They came in alone and in couples, and 
whenever the conversation could be overheard, it 
referred to something “ he,” generally without the 
aspirate had said, done, or was going to do. Occa- 
sionally a male acquaintance among the habitues 
was recognized with a giggle and a nod. 

“ They are all prettier than I am,” thought Alice, 
“ and gayer — yes, all of them. They manage to 
make the best of what they’ve got. I have no doubt 
that George Wilson would be much happier with 
one of these girls than he could have been with me, 
and they would all think him a most delightful per- 
son, I am sure. He made a mistake, and he has had 
a lucky escape.” 

But she would not have changed places with one 
of these young persons, though none of them could 
have such antecedents as hers. The girl whose 
heritage was infamy had to find within herself 
grounds for the self-respect without which her 
spirit would have succumbed. She would have liked 
to be supremely beautiful; as that could not be, she 
had cultivated her mind, in order to be able to look 
down on her usual associates from a higher mental 
plane. She had never worn cheap flowers and 
feathers in her hat, or bright silk blouses which were 
dirty; she never read penny novelettes and talked 

54 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

about “ him ” and “ fellers,” with a giggle, in 
A.B.C. shops. 

“ My father was a gentleman, and my mother 
was a lady before she was a murderess,” she was 
for ever reminding herself. “ I am a lady too.” 

It was a fact that certain things came intuitively 
to her, and that she hankered passionately after the 
refined surroundings which were denied to her 
means. Verschoyle’s flat, the atmosphere of it, the 
tone of the man himself, had appealed to her at 
first with an aching pleasure. It was her first 
contact with cultivation: she had been employed in 
city offices before. In some ways she would be 
sorry to go even now. There would be children to 
take care of in Siam, and she was not fond of chil- 
dren in general: most of them had disagreeable 
traits as far as she had seen; they were usually 
selfish, greedy and tiresome. The house would 
probably be furnished too with the primitive Phil- 
istinism rampant in the Colonies; and she loved 
beautiful objects of art and harmonious colours such 
as Verschoyle’s home possessed; and she would be 
obliged to spend her spare time in plain needle- 
work, mending and household duties, without in- 
terest, at the bidding of a woman who was prob- 
ably a fool. 

All the same she decided to go, only it was part 
of her morbid nature to look for the worst always. 

55 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She went to see the go-between, and signed her 
acceptance of the terms on the receipt of the first 
half-quarter’s salary, unexpectedly offered to her in 
advance. 

She was to have forty pounds a year, which was 
good pay considering that everything but clothes 
would be found for her, and she was only qualified 
to teach young children. 

It was done now; she could not turn back if she 
wished. She was to sail next Tuesday; her ticket 
would be delivered to her before she went on board. 
Her farewells would not take long; she did not 
mean to say good-bye to anybody; there was no one 
for whom she cared enough. 

Her lips set tighter than ever when she thought 
about her loneliness, and a fierce sadness lurked in 
her black eyes. She hated the world which neg- 
lected her; she steeled her heart and refused to feel 
the least regret at leaving the land of her birth. She 
had no country; she had become an Ishmaelite, 
without knowing the significance of the word, as 
the black flag had announced her mother’s execution 
to the child of seven years old. 

She was sewing by the light of the lamp in her 
bedroom that evening when the maid-of-all-work 
arrived panting at the door. 

“ There’s a gentleman to see you, miss.” 

“ A gentleman ? ” repeated Alice. 

56 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She thought of two people. Had George Wilson 
changed his mind and found her out; or had the 
man who had engaged her for his friend to-day, 
remembered something essential to say to her? 

“ Didn't he give a name ? ” she asked. 

“ No." 

The general servant was already descending the 
stairs. Alice called after her. 

“ What have you done with him ? " 

“ He's a-waitin' in the 'all." 

** Oh, bother ! " muttered the girl. “ Stop a mo- 
ment, Annie. Aren’t the dining-room people out? " 

“ I dun'no." 

“Well, find out," said Alice, sharply; “and if 
they are, show him in there. Mrs. Baker won't 
mind. He can’t come up here." 

She tidied her hair hurriedly, picked the loose 
threads from her dress, and followed the servant 
down-stairs. 

“ I don't see that the Siam man can have any- 
thing to say to me," she mused, “ unless he wants 
to back out." 

Her heart beat a little. She had been thinking 
about Siam; it would upset all her calculations if 
she were not to go after all. 

Evidently the dining-room lodgers — who were 
members of the theatrical profession — were out, for 
no one was waiting in the hall. Alice pushed open 

57 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the dining-room door, which was ajar, and found 
Mr. Verschoyle standing on the hearthrug. 

She was so surprised that she stared at him 
speechlessly. He was the last person she had ex- 
pected to see. 

He in return regarded her without speaking for 
a moment, and it was the girl who was the first to 
break the silence. 

“ Oh, good-evening, Mr. Verschoyle, M she said, 
hurriedly, “ do you want me to do some work for 
you ? ” 

“ Not exactly,” he replied, with unusual hesita- 
tion. “ You wouldn’t stay this morning when I 
asked you. Will you marry me? ” 

“ Marry you ! ” exclaimed Alice. 

She could not believe that she had heard aright. 
Her lips parted, her eyes rested on his face with 
anxious attention. 

“ Yes, I don’t want you to go away,” he said. 

He did not make any protestations of devotion; 
no offer of marriage could have been more baldly 
framed. It was not his nature to deceive her. He 
wanted her to stay. She understood that the whole 
of his motive was contained in that plain statement 
of fact. He was not in love with her; there was 
not a particle of passion in his voice or face; it was 
a purely intellectual interest that she had roused in 
him; a sort of curiosity, a keen desire to know, as 

58 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

only marriage could enable him to know, the girl 
whose portrait he wanted for his book. The “ hu- 
man document ” which was so valuable to him, was 
to be well bound and preserved for reference. 

She had always disdained the sentiment circum- 
stances forbade her to encourage; she had laid 
down, as her theory of life, that she must never be 
foolish enough to refuse any honest means of pro- 
viding for herself, however distasteful the means 
might be. It was in that mood that she had watched 
George Wilson’s “ intentions ” develop, and had ac- 
cepted him in the end. 

Nevertheless she coloured now from throat to 
brow. 

“ I’ll stay for nothing ! ” she said, impulsively. 
“ I’ll take the thirty-five shillings a week you offered 
me. That is quite enough.” 

“ That is very generous of you,” said Ver- 
schoyle, with a half smile, “ and I am deeply appre- 
ciative, believe me. But I had much rather you 
accepted my offer. You need not imagine that it is 
the unconsidered fruit of your determination to go 
to Siam. I have been thinking about it since you 
told me that Mr. George Wilson had retired; it was 
even in my mind, a mere germ, when I advised you 
to tell him about your mother.” 

“ You offered me a higher salary this morning,” 
she said, jerkily argumentative. 

59 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I was making time for myself, that was all. 
Man is a procrastinating animal. You must pardon 
my delay.” 

The girl’s fingers interlaced nervously ; she looked 
defiant. 

“ Of course I am not going to refuse,” she said. 
“ I should be a fool ! I suppose you know your own 
mind about it, although I shouldn’t dream of it if I 
were in your place.” 

He regarded her with unveiled amusement. 

“ You are a strange girl. I never met one 
with such an outspoken contempt for herself.” 

“ There you are wrong ! ” she retorted. “ I don’t 
despise myself. But I know I have none of the 
qualities which please people.” 

“ Can’t you imagine that you might be more at- 
tractive to a man than you think ? ” 

“ No, you know I’m not ! ” 

“ George Wilson found you so, it seems.” 

“ George Wilson!” 

“ Well, he was a man of a sort.” 

“ You know I’m not attractive,” she said, with 
a gasp. “ What is the use of pretending ! When 
your book is done, and you’ve got just as inter- 
ested in another, you’ll wonder how on earth you 
could have made such a sacrifice for it. But that’s 
not my business. You are a man ; you can take care 
60 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

of yourself, I suppose; and Fd rather be your wife 
than go to Siam or work for my living in London.” 

A sob which had been smothered in her throat 
got the upper hand. She turned away, and hid her 
face on the corner of the mantelpiece. 

Verschoyle was silent for a moment; he followed 
the girl and stood beside her. 

“ I shall get another secretary, of course,” he 
said. “ I fancy I was unkind this morning; I didn’t 
mean it. It was thoughtlessness, not callousness.” 

“ Yes.” 

He laid his hand on her shoulder. 

“ Then it is a bargain, eh ? ” 

She nodded, and raised her face, which bore 
traces of tears. 

“ When shall we be married ? I could go away 
conveniently at the end of next week. It does not 
seem to me that there is any use in a prolonged en- 
gagement. I’ll get a licence. Could you be ready ? ” 

“ If you like. How shall I manage about Siam ? 
I’ve signed an agreement, and received ten pounds 
on account.” 

“ What is the man’s name, and where does he 
live? ” asked Verschoyle. “ I’ll arrange that.” 

“ There is the ten pounds,” she said, methodically, 
producing her purse. 

“ Never mind,” he said, “ unless it is a cheque? ” 

61 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


“ It is a note. ,, 

“ Keep it; I will give you some more in the morn- 
ing. You will want clothes, no doubt. Are you 
comfortable in these lodgings ? ” 

“ This room isn’t mine,” she said. “ I’ve only 
got a bedroom at the top of the house ? ” 

“ Isn’t there a sitting-room you could have ? ” 

“ No. Both this and the drawing-room are let. 
It doesn’t matter. I shall be out a great deal get- 
ting my things, and I’ve put up with worse for 
longer than a week or two.” 

“ You waif of the city! ” he said, looking at her 
under his lids with a pity which was almost tender- 
ness. “ Some girls of your age have scarcely been 
out alone; and you — I suppose there is no shift you 
have not been put to, no narrow place that you have 
not been obliged to wriggle out of alone ! ” 

The girl’s hand clenched; her bosom swelled; her 
eyes widened with pride and passion too. 

“ I’ve had to protect myself for five years,” she 
said. “ They seem fifty. I am an old woman in 
some ways. I wonder you are not afraid to trust 
me! ” 

“ A man in his right senses should be able to rely 
on his own judgment in certain respects,” he re- 
plied. “Will you come to-morrow as usual? I 
shall not be able to see you otherwise, as I cannot 
visit you here. You shall not work upon the book.” 

62 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I don’t mind,” she said, bravely. “ I’m quite 
willing to oblige you till you get somebody else.” 

The primness of her sacrifice made him smile. 

“ No, I know you do mind. I can make my own 
notes until we return from our honeymoon, and the 
new secretary arrives.” 

The slate clock on the mantelpiece struck ten. 
Verschoyle took up his hat. 

“ Well, I shall see you in the morning, Alice? ” 

“ Yes,” said the girl. “ Thank you.” 

There was a strained pause. He bent his head 
and kissed her. 

“ You must try to be happy,” he said, in a low 
tone. “ I mean you — I want you to be happy.” 

She was surprised to find that he was regarding 
her with an expression she had never seen in his 
eyes before. She could not imagine at this moment 
why she had considered his face hard. Her heart 
beat, her lips trembled, the kiss left a burning mem- 
ory on her cheek. 

“ You are very kind,” she faltered. “ I am ever 
so much obliged to you — although I am sure you 
are making a mistake ! ” 

She went to the front door with him. 

“ Go in out of the cold,” he said, with the author- 
ity of possession. 

The command convinced her that they were really 
engaged. 


63 


Chapter VII 

A LICE returned to the dining-room, and 
turned the gas out with mechanical econ- 
omy, before mounting to her own room. 
Slie was engaged to be married to Anthony Ver- 
schoyle. She had to repeat this to herself many 
times, because it seemed too incredible to be true. 
If she had been beautiful and fascinating she could 
have understood that a man in his position might 
be tempted to contract an unequal marriage, but he 
was not in love with her ; she knew that as well as 
she knew that she was not in love with him. 

Her sensation at the moment, indeed, was more 
one of awe than of anything else. She was so sur- 
prised that she could not feel elated. It was neces- 
sary to enumerate to herself all the benefits which 
would accrue to her by this marriage in order to 
make her realize her wonderful good fortune. To 
begin with, she would be raised in a day to a posi- 
tion of ease and independence. She would never 
have to work for her living any more; she would 
never be snubbed by employers, or obliged to dance 
64 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

attendance on the tyrants of employment agencies. 
She would be Mrs. Anthony Verschoyle, the mis- 
tress of the artistic home which had filled her with 
such envy of its possessor. Her life in future would 
be passed in an atmosphere of culture, and the so- 
ciety of a refined and talented gentleman. 

“ What a change he will be after George Wil- 
son ! ” she thought. 

It was typical of her respectful regard for Ver- 
schoyle that, although she knew he was not in love 
with her, she had no fear that he would neglect her. 
He had said that he wished her to be happy, and of 
course he would show her every consideration. He 
would be a husband to be proud of. It would be 
agreeable to be with him when the strangeness of 
their new relationship wore off. 

She began to flush with the excitement of the 
sudden and most marvellous change in her pros- 
pects. Her arms embracing her knees, the girl sat 
over the fire like a witch, her eyes glowing, the 
colour in her cheeks deepening with the progress of 
her thoughts. 

It was long past eleven before she remembered to 
go to bed, and then she could not sleep. If she had 
been asked this morning to foretell her future, she 
would have guessed anything sooner than that An- 
thony Verschoyle would propose to her. 

“ It is too good to be true.” she repeated to her- 

6S 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

self, with ingrained pessimism. “ He will change 
his mind before the wedding.” 

She had never expected a genuine love affair, so 
she was perfectly satisfied with Verschoyle. No 
marriage of convenience could have possessed more 
agreeable attributes. The man himself, his position, 
his environment, all appealed to the native fastidi- 
ousness of her nature. There would be nothing 
coarse to make her feel that she was paying dearly 
for her position. If she had married George Wilson 
she would have hated him often; he would have 
kept her in a fever of self-assertion, protest, argu- 
ment, disgust. Verschoyle’s companionship could 
not blunt the refinement or the intelligence of any 
woman, nor would he seek to stamp his individuality 
upon her as the man of lower type would do. She 
would be free with him; her soul and mind could 
expand. She might be herself without any cramp- 
ing conditions or penalties. 

And if he had not begun this book, he would 
have known nothing of her history, and would cer- 
tainly never have asked her to marry him. Such 
a coincidence amounted to an intention on the part 
of destiny. They must be made for each other ; she 
must have been meant throughout to be luckier than 
she supposed. The chain of circumstances had 
linked themselves so curiously in her favour, that 
66 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she had no right to dread that anything would hap- 
pen to disappoint her now. 

What tears she had wasted over George Wilson ! 
His meanness was the first blessing which had come 
to her in disguise. The lesson ought to be a valu- 
able one to her, but still she was weighted with 
anxiety, and knew that she would not feel secure 
until the marriage was accomplished. 

So many things might happen. If he spoke of 
his intention to friends, he might be persuaded to 
forego it; he might lose interest in her — she held 
him by such a slender thread; he might fall ill and 
die. 

She shuddered as though she loved him, and 
closed her eyes, and wished for morning. Her night 
visions were always ugly. The girl’s dormant vi- 
tality, which the sun warmed to a little life, reached 
its ebb in those silent hours peopled for years with 
the tragic spectres of her childhood. Poverty and 
loneliness had stalked as grimly through her nights. 
She could not put away at once such deeply-burned 
impressions ; she dare not rejoice too freely lest she 
rejoiced too soon. She had always been unlucky. A 
disappointment of this kind was the most likely 
thing to happen to her. 

Morning found her in no livelier mood. She 
was sure that he had changed his mind already, and 
67 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

could not touch her breakfast for a lump of nervous 
suspense in her throat. All the sordid details of her 
toilet were the same as yesterday ; her pale face and 
black eyes looked as unattractive to her as ever. 
Nothing had changed since yesterday; why should 
she imagine that Mr. Verschoyle was going to marry 
her? She was intended for a dismal subordinate 
position. 

All the way to Westminster in the omnibus she 
stared through people and things at a world of her 
own. She saw her mother and father, and herself 
as a child ; she heard herself crying when the tragedy 
was complete; she felt the misery of her school- 
days, and the convulsive throb of hope with which 
she had first encountered a beam of admiration from 
George Wilson’s eyes. It was her nature to retain 
a more vivid recollection of the many unpleasant 
than of the few pleasant incidents of her life; even 
the gratification she had derived from Verschoyle’s 
proposal was obliterated momentarily by an old 
anguish, and the mortifying memory of George Wil- 
son’s recoil. 

Her ’bus deposited her not far from Verschoyle’s 
door, and she walked on with beating heart. She 
would feel easier when they had met again, and his 
proposal had been ratified in the cool sanity of the 
morning. 

Yesterday she had been his secretary, to-day she 
68 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

was his hancee; it was a curious feeling. She stepped 
into the lift in a dream, and waited afterwards, with 
a humming in her ears, for his servant to open the 
door. Her fancy detected an unusual respect in the 
man’s manner ; did he know ? Of course he knew 
nothing at all; Verschoyle was not likely to discuss 
his private affairs with the butler. 

She took off her things by the hall fire as usual, 
and in a moment a door opened, and Verschoyle 
came out of his study to greet her. That was un- 
usual; he meant it then; she had not dreamed last 
night. 

“ Well, Alice?” 

He smiled at her, and took her chilly hand. A 
rare awkwardness tied her tongue; she turned red 
and stammered, the girl who had lived alone in 
London for five years. A lover was different from 
an employer; she had never felt embarrassed with 
him before. 

“ I was thinking all night,” she said, “ that you 
couldn’t mean it after all.” 

“ What an unbeliever you are ! ” 

“ It seems so funny,” she said infelicitously. 

“ At any rate I am an improvement on George 
Wilson, am I not ? ” 

“ Oh, of course,” she said. 

He laughed at the fervour of her reply, and a 
furious blush mantled her cheeks. 

69 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


“ Come in,” he said. “ Why are we standing 
out here? I am not going to work this morning. 
I am taking a holiday in honour of you. We will 
talk awhile.” 

“ Are you sure you don’t want me to do some 
work for you ? ” she asked, earnestly. “ I should 
like to. I don’t mind at all.” 

“If you really mean it, I have an article to get 
off my mind. But seriously I don’t feel industrious 
this morning. Let me wheel this chair nearer the 
fire for you.” 

He shook up the down pillow in the big arm- 
chair, and brought a footstool for her feet. She 
hoped he did not notice how shabby her shoes were. 
It made her dizzy to be waited on by him. His 
manner towards her was quite different from usual. 
He had always been courteous to the secretary; but 
every inflection of his voice reminded her that now 
she was his promised wife. 

They were to talk, so of course she had nothing 
whatever to say to him. He had tact enough, how- 
ever, to break the ice. He asked her questions about 
her childhood and subsequent struggles, and the 
secret agonies of years came out with a rush. She 
told him everything. He was the first person she 
had ever been able to trust, and the relief of un- 
burdening herself was great, although she guessed 
his motive in encouraging her confidence. His in- 
70 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

terest might be purely intellectual, but it was in- 
terest. She knew that she might express herself 
freely and fully without boring him, and it was the 
nearest approach to sympathy that she had known. 
Perhaps she felt too, that he was entitled to every 
information concerning herself that she could give 
him. It was her memory that he was buying; the 
tacit contract between them demanded openness 
from her. 

In return he told her exactly what his position 
was, and asked whether she would like to keep on 
in the flat or take a house. He had a thousand a year 
besides his considerable professional income. 

“ I should prefer to remain here,” she said at once. 
“I love this flat. You have made it so beautiful.” 

“ Very well. And where shall we go for the 
honeymoon ? ” 

Her eyes sparkled. 

“ I have a great desire to go to Rome. But if 
you think it would be too far ” 

“ We will go to Rome,” he said. “ There is noth- 
ing to prevent me working a few hours a day while 
we are away. I must get you a ring, Alice. Would 
you like diamonds ? ” 

“ I shall like whatever you please to give me,” 
said the girl. 

He invited her to dine out with him that even- 
ing when it was time for her to go. 

71 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She was tempted by the idea of it. The lights, the 
music, the gaiety of a smart restaurant, looked more 
attractive than a cup of tea at home. 

“ But I am so shabby,” she objected, wistfully. 
“ You would be ashamed of me.” 

“Could you get something in time?” 

“I might.” 

“ I have fifty pounds here for you. Take it now. 
You shall have another fifty to-morrow.” 

Her hands shook as she took the notes: her lips 
were dry. 

“ Thank you very much. It doesn’t seem right, 
though.” 

“ Nonsense, my child. ... I would ask you to 
stay to lunch with me, but it is better not, I suppose. 
I am expecting a friend too. Shall I call for you at 
seven ? ” 

“ I shall be ready,” she murmured. 

He put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her 
again. 

“ Have a good lunch. I feel as though I were 
turning you out. What a shame ! ” 

It seemed to be his aim to make their brief engage- 
ment as normal as possible. His manner was frank 
and lively. He spoke of fetching her as though it 
would give him pleasure to take her out, and the 
familiarity of the caress had a natural air. 

He hoped, indeed, that she would grow fond of 
72 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


him. It would be interesting if she developed the 
same jealous tendencies as her mother. He no 
longer thought of love for himself; there had been 
an episode in his life which he would never forget. 
The girl would be a stimulating companion. He did 
not expect, and perhaps did not desire, more of any 
woman at this date. 


73 


Chapter VIII 

A LICE slipped the notes in her bosom as she 
went down stairs. Her purse was not to 
be trusted. She had never possessed so 
much money in her life. 

“ Yes, I am really, really engaged,” she told her- 
self. “ He is very nice about it. I am sure I shall 
like him. I don’t suppose there are many such hand- 
some and agreeable men in London. And he is 
actually going to marry me — Alice Durand ! ” 

Fresh wonder seized her; she would never be tired 
of wondering at the marvellous good fortune which 
had happened at last to her unlucky self. But youth 
was not dead in her. She ordered an extravagant 
lunch at a restaurant which had always been above 
her means, and, being a girl, drank lemonade with 
it. She had felt “ in it ” when George Wilson had 
taken her out to tea on Sundays; how would she 
feel clothed in new and expensive clothes, and din- 
ing at a sumptuous restaurant with a handsome and 
celebrated man like Anthony Verschoyle? The 
prospect was so dazzling that it almost took her 
breath away. She abandoned herself to a lotos 

74 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

dream of luxury. The materialism which is in most 
women’s natures, which had received so little en- 
couragement in hers, fed upon this first earnest of a 
new and brighter life. 

The dinner with Verschoyle would be but the 
beginning. The brilliancy of the occasion would 
not be dimmed by the thought that she had nothing 
more to look forward to, entr’actes of uneasiness 
about to-morrow. She was not to be the Cinderella 
of a night; the clothes she bought with his money, 
would not vanish as the clock struck twelve. 

She was only a young girl after all; and now 
that the numbed incredulity of the first surprise was 
over, her heart beat, and her cheeks glowed. Happi- 
ness was scarcely the word to be applied to her 
state ; she was feverish with excitement, and the tur- 
moil of her mind took away her appetite even for the 
best meal which she had had for months. 

The afternoon was spent in shopping. Despite 
her haste she meant to get the value for her money. 
She purchased with good taste and discrimination 
hampered by inexperience, and a West End shop had 
altered a light silk gown to fit her, and sent her 
home an opera-cloak, gloves, and other necessaries 
in good time. 

She was ready ten minutes before seven ; it would 
have seemed to her an impertinence to keep him 
waiting. It was with a little trepidation that she 

75 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

surveyed herself in her cracked looking-glass mean- 
while ; she was so unused to seeing herself in evening 
dress, that the result frightened more than it pleased 
her. She would have felt more at ease in her own 
well-worn blouse, which she had made herself. Per- 
haps she looked ridiculous, and he would feel un- 
comfortable at being seen with her. 

If anyone had slighted her mental capacity, she 
would have been ready enough to defend herself; 
she was always diffident about her looks. She ad- 
mired big fair women, with fine figures, masses of 
golden hair, and white skins. She had no “ man- 
ner,” and no appearance. She would have done 
far better,, no doubt, to have bought herself some- 
thing quieter. 

It was in an agony of concealed nervousness that 
she went down when the up-stairs bell tinkled — the 
signal agreed upon between herself and Annie. She 
scarcely dared to face him. His voice reassured her. 

“ You look very nice, Alice.” 

“ I am glad you think so,” she replied, with a 
gasp of relief. “ Of course I am not used to dress- 
ing,” she added. “ I have only been able to clothe 
myself. I shall improve with experience.” 

“ No doubt,” he said. 

He was kind but indifferent; evidently the subject 
was not of great importance to him; and his tone 
would have reminded her, if she had needed remind- 
76 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

ing, that it was not for her appearance that he was 
going to marry her. She was too pleased with her 
prospects, however, to be damped by such trifles. 
This ideal evening had already come. 

The hansom was waiting for them. He helped 
her in. 

“ I have a couple of stalls for the St. James’s in 
my pocket,” he said, as they drove off. “ I thought 
you would rather go to a theatre after dinner than 
home.” 

“ Of course I would ! I have never been to the 
theatre in the stalls in my life.” 

“ Really!” 

“ George Wilson took me three times in the upper 
circle. When I paid for myself it would never 
run to more than the pit.” Her voice sank to a 
whisper. “ I have been in the gallery ! ” 

“ You must be fond of theatres ! ” 

“ I am. You see I’ve never had anything else,” 
she said, a dreamy note in her voice. “ I used to go 
and watch women in beautiful dresses — loving and 
hating and being loved. It was romance ; it warmed 
me here where life had left me cold — frozen with 
cold. Between the acts, I envied the people in the 
stalls, that is true, and it was dreary going home 
afterwards.” She checked herself with a sigh, fol- 
lowed by a swift smile. “ But I shall be in the 
stalls myself to-night ! ” 


77 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Yes/' he said, “ and you will be able to go to 
the theatre whenever you like. I have a play coming 
out in a few months. You shall have a box for the 
first night. I know plenty of theatrical people ; they 
may amuse you.” 

He had been afraid for a few moments that she 
was going to be commonplace after all ; her obvious 
excitement over little pleasures, her anxiety about 
her clothes, had been the sort of thing to be expected 
of any suburban miss. That note about romance and 
life had sounded different. He remarked once more 
her curious innate faculty of expression. She felt 
so much, and she could make him feel and see 
what she saw. Her passionate earnestness was 
magnetic. 

“ Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, suddenly, 
“ to go upon the stage yourself, ” 

“ No,” she said, wondering. “ Why? ” 

He did not tell her that she had the temperament 
of an actress, because he did not wish to put ideas 
into her head which would not please him. 

“ I thought,” he said, “ that there was a stage- 
struck period in every girl’s career — as necessary as 
the measles ! ” 

“ I wrote poetry,” she said, and blushed. “ It 
was miserable poetry. I often cried over it. It’s 
just a way of letting off steam, I suppose. A young 
man is spoken of as ‘ fast/ and a girl at the same 

78 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

age, if she is a respectable girl, writes verses in her 
bedroom, and hides them, or sighs for the stage.” 

“ I believe you could tell me a great deal about 
your own sex if you chose,” he said, in a tone of 
interest. 

“ I suppose any woman could.” 

“ Ah, but they don't,” he said. “ That's the thing. 
From the time the average girl puts her frocks 
down, and her hair up, her chief occupation is to 
appear to men as she is not. I should like to know — 
many things.” 

“ You must know plenty of women older and 
more experienced than I am,” she said, “ who are 
better qualified to inform you.” 

“ The respectable ones are not so intelligent — and 
so truthful, and the other kind won't do.” 

She blushed; it was the first compliment he had 
paid her. Then she blushed for another reason. 

“ Perhaps I talk too much ! It is always the way 
when one is not used to talking at all.” 

“ We will resume the conversation when we are 
married,” he said, smiling. “ Here we are.” 

The cab drew up at a restaurant, and he helped 
her out. The dream sensation came back again with 
the lights, the warmth, the bowing waiters. 

Her confidences were spasmodic, and alternated 
with fits of reserve which held her almost speechless. 
When she once began to talk, she talked quickly, 

79 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

eagerly, animatedly, and her black eyes flashed, and 
her voice possessed many notes. She was, as she 
said, unaccustomed to discussing herself and her 
thoughts with any one, and she had none of the culti- 
vated hypocrisies of the society manner. If she 
spoke at all, she did not stop to consider what im- 
pression she was making ; her language and opinions 
were sincere. 

“ It seems impossible,” she said, “ that I should 
be out with you ! ” 

“ There is a pledge of reality for you ,” he replied, 
and laid a diamond ring on the table beside her. 

“ My engagement ring,” she murmured. “ It is 
a far more beautiful one than George Wilson gave 
me. 

He let her put it on herself, and she alluded calmly 
to her former engagement. There was no sentiment 
lost between them. But he was an attentive com- 
panion, interesting, and interested in her, watchful 
of her ways, her likes and dislikes, the inflection of 
her voice, her movements and mannerisms. He led 
her cleverly from one subject to another during the 
many courses of the dinner, to discover what she 
knew and what she cared about, and did not snub 
her opinions when they were young and crude. He 
was surprised indeed at her width of information, 
and the deep intelligence she displayed on many 
matters. She had evidently read a great deal, and 
80 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

on lines unusual for a girl. She told him, in the 
course of conversation, that her father had been a 
man of brilliant qualities, who would have made a 
mark if he had lived. 

“ Yes, there is something in heredity,” said Ver- 
schoyle, thinking aloud. “ You might have been the 
ordinary tousled young person of uncertain aspirates 
and violent taste in dress — only it is so much more 
natural that you are not! In fact you are your 
parents’ child.” 

“ Yes,” said the girl, “ my father’s — and my mo- 
ther’s child.” 

Her long lashes were lowered, her lips com- 
pressed. The clang of a prison bell had drowned the 
orchestra, a black flag had veiled the lights. 

Verschoyle, who was regarding her curiously, 
roused her with a touch. 

“ Don’t think about it here ! ” 

George Wilson would have said : “ What are you 
thinking about ? ” She appreciated the difference. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said, simply. 

At the theatre afterwards, Verschoyle met a 
friend, and introduced Alice as his fiancee. On the 
way home she told him that she had never had such 
an enjoyable evening in her life. For the first time 
she returned his kiss, when they said good-night on 
the doorstep, and called him by his name. 

She was happy and flushed. Even the dinginess 
81 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

of the lodging-house could not damp her elation. 
She had tasted the fruits of wealth to-night, of 
wealth and position and sympathy. She liked Ver- 
schoyle. He could not have been nicer. She was 
very glad that she was going to marry him. It was 
such a delightful new experience to be able to refer to 
her parents without disguise. Nobody else had ever 
taken such an interest in her. Her few girl friends 
had always wanted to talk about themselves, not to 
listen to her; the habit of silence had come easy 
enough. She felt younger than she had felt for 
years ; there was a buoyancy in her breast. She was 
no longer an outcast, a soul alone ; he had taken her 
in out of the wilderness, and given her a home. 

The days that followed were equally happy. She 
went every morning to Verschoyle as usual, and 
begged permission to write his letters, and perform 
other details of her old secretarial duties for him. 
As she was so busy getting her trousseau ready, she 
did not always stay long with him. He took her out 
to dinner several times, however, and their inter- 
course had become naturally familiar. 

She wondered, on the eve of the marriage, what 
George Wilson and his aunt and all the people at the 
boarding-house would think if they knew that she 
was going to be married to-morrow, and to whom. 
She longed to go and tell them; the idea of the sen- 
sation she would create was very attractive. 

82 



“ She had tasted the fruits of wealth to-night ; of wealth, and posi- 
tion and sympathy.” Page 82. 





A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ But it would be rather vulgar, I suppose, to 
call,” she mused. “ It would look as though I 
wanted to brag — and as though I cared what these 
people thought of me. I’ll wait till we return from 
the honeymoon.” 

She had arranged to meet Verschoyle at a certain 
quiet church at ten the next morning. His lawyer 
was to fetch her and give her away. Nobody else 
would be present. 

Alice could not help feeling that something must 
happen still to prevent the ceremony taking place. 
The eventful morning dawned as other mornings, 
nevertheless, and no telegram came to warn her of 
a postponement. 

At twenty minutes to ten Mr. Hamilcar made his 
appearance — an elderly man, in a frock coat, with a 
festive button-hole. He introduced himself to Alice, 
who was waiting, and complimented her upon the 
occasion. They drove to the church together, al- 
most in silence ; the girl was stricken dumb, and the 
lawyer was wondering what on earth had induced 
Anthony Verschoyle to marry his secretary. 

At the door of the church Verschoyle met them. 
He pressed Alice's hand, and told her that the clergy- 
man was ready. He had his usual self-possessed air, 
but seemed to know that her heart was fluttering, 
for he held her arm unceremoniously up the aisle. 

The scene was so natural, and so unnatural; so 

83 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

strange, and yet so strangely familiar, as though in 
a dream she had seen it all before. . . . 

When it was over, Mr. Hamilcar and the clergy- 
man shook their hands, and wished them luck in the 
vestry. Verschoyle kissed his wife. 

The lawyer accompanied them to the door, where 
they shook hands once more and parted. 

Mr. and Mrs. Verschoyle drove direct to Charing 
Cross. Verschoyle had timed the wedding in order 
to allow them to catch the Continental express. 
Their luggage had already been conveyed to the sta- 
tion and registered by Verschoyle’s manservant, who 
was waiting to hand his master the receipt and the 
tickets. 

There was no pause, and scarcely time to think 
till they were en route . 

“ We did that neatly,” said Verschoyle. “ I feel 
in a good temper, Alice, do you ? ” 

“ I am quite happy,” said the girl, dreamily. 

“ Do you love me? ” he asked, smiling. 

“ I like you very much,” she responded, with 
colour in her cheeks. 

If he were not in love himself, he was sufficiently 
attracted to rise to the occasion. It was a fact that 
she had grown upon him greatly during the intimacy 
of the engagement. They had the compartment to 
themselves, and he came over and sat beside her, and 
put his arm round her waist. 

84 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ It reminds me of George Wilson,” she mur- 
mured. 

“ Damn George Wilson! ” said Verschoyle, flush- 
ing. 

It was the first time she had heard him swear. 


85 


Chapter IX 

T HEY spent a week in Paris, and then went 
on to Rome via Genoa. Alice was de- 
lighted with everything. The change, the 
novelty, the life of the great hotels, all new to her, 
the absence of responsibility, made her another girl. 

The morbid thoughtfulness seemed to be ousted 
from her character by a zest and enthusiasm far more 
suited to her years. Pier communicativeness was no 
longer spasmodic; she no longer shrank into her 
shell at a touch. She was surprisingly bright and 
na'ive and appreciative — scarcely like the same girl 
who had been Verschoyle’s secretary. 

He was an admirable travelling companion, and 
her freshness and intelligence pleased him, no doubt. 
He showed her everything, and took her everywhere, 
although it was all old ground to him, enjoying 
himself the while as much, apparently, as she was 
enjoying herself. 

“ I think we are having a happy honeymoon, don’t 
you?” he asked her when they had been married 
about five weeks. 

“ I am enjoying it immensely,” she said. 

86 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I wonder if I may take that as a compliment? ” 

Tears rose to her eyes, and she put her hand on 
his arm. 

“ Indeed,” she said, “ I am sure I shouldn’t be so 
happy with anybody else. I am grateful; you 
mustn’t think I am not.” 

“ It’s all right, dear ; I know.” 

He patted her hand affectionately before she re- 
moved it. They were not demonstrative as a rule; 
it was unnecessary under the circumstances; but no 
doubt they had grown fond of each other since their 
marriage. 

As she strolled away from him among the groups 
of people in the hall, he overheard a brief conversa- 
tion between two Frenchmen. 

“ That’s the best-looking woman in the place.” 

"Chic, eh? French?” 

“ No — American perhaps. She is married to the 
Englishman who sits at the table near you.” 

“ What eyes, mon Dieu! She is too young; she 
does not know how to use them. In a year or 
two ” The Frenchman blew a kiss at the air. 

Verschoyle glanced round with masculine interest 
to see of whom they were talking. To his surprise 
he found them gazing after his wife. 

It was a sensation which sent the blood to his 
head. These men spoke of her as though she were 
a beauty. They found her too attractive for an 

87 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Englishwoman ; they discussed her points seriously, 
among a crowd of women of every nationality. Was 
it possible that she was really good-looking, or had 
she struck a peculiar taste? He had never con- 
sidered her good-looking ; he had not thought of her 
in that light at all. 

When she turned towards him, he regarded her 
curiously. He was trying to see her with a stranger’s 
eyes, and the result of his effort was a second sur- 
prise even greater than the first. Happiness had 
changed her in more ways than one. Her once som- 
bre eyes were brilliant, her thin face had filled out to 
a perfect oval ; her lips were no longer bloodless and 
contracted to a rigid line by suppressed animosity 
against the world; her whole expression had soft- 
ened, her manner acquired an indefinable charm. 
In Paris she had learned how to do her hair, and be- 
coming clothes called attention to the excellent lines 
and suppleness of her figure, which was still too thin. 

Verschoyle remained staring at her as at an ap- 
parition. Had he never seen her before, or was it 
possible for a few weeks of marriage to change a 
girl so much? She must have changed, yet the 
foundation of her good looks had not attracted his 
attention. She was really a beautiful and graceful 
woman, and she was his wife. 

He was naturally gratified, and the unwonted 

88 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

warmth of his expression brought the colour to her 
face. 

“ What is the matter ? ” she asked. 

He made room for her on the couch beside him, 
and lighted another cigarette. 

“ Nothing is the matter. You are looking well, 
Alice. The trip has done you good. ,, 

“ Yes, I feel very well. It is such a relief not to 
be bothered about anything.” She laughed softly. 

“ I shall begin to get fat directly.” 

He smiled at her caressingly. 

“ You could stand a little more flesh. Do you 
know what I overhead about you just now? A 
Frenchman said you were the prettiest woman in 
the hotel.” 

“ Oh nonsense ! He must be silly.” 

“ I think so too.” 

“ You are making fun of me! ” 

“ Vanity concerning your personal appearance 
was never one of your faults, eh ? ” He put his 
arm through hers and leaned back, watching her, 
their heads close together. “ Yes, you have im- 
proved a great deal. Marriage and prosperity agree 
with you. I’d kiss you if we were alone.” 

“ I am flattered,” she said. 

She was beginning to be a woman already. The 
strangeness was wearing off, with her first awe of 

89 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

him. She saw to-night that he admired her, and her 
heart beat quicker with pleasure. They were very 
good friends. 

When the tour they had planned was nearly over, 
he reminded her that he had not done a stroke of 
work since he had been away. 

“ It’s your fault,” he said. “ You haven’t given 
me a moment to myself. You are too young for me, 
that is a fact.” l 

“ I would have stayed -at home willingly at any 
time,” she replied in distress. “ Why did you let 
me waste your time? Of course it is for you to say 
always.” 

“ Yes, you are obedient,” he said, touching her 
cheek. “ I am not finding fault with you. I don’t 
think I could pay you a higher compliment, my dear, 
than to admit that I have been too entertained by 
your society to wish to leave it even for a couple of 
hours.” 

“ I am glad I haven’t bored you,” said the girl, 
gravely. 

It was one of those moments when her old self re- 
vived, and a silence followed which he felt to be 
namelessly embarrassing. 

“ I think we shall get on just as well at home,” 
he added. “ You are sensible and reasonable. An 
unreasonable woman is the most irritating animal on 
the face of the earth ! ” 


90 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He did not add as he might have done : “ And 
sometimes the most lovable.” He spoke with the 
animus of personal experience, and frowned and 
laughed afterwards, in dismissing a memory which 
chance had aroused. 

Alice was becoming accustomed to compliments 
from him, and this one did not prevent her wonder- 
ing if he had ever been in love. Of course he must 
have had “ affairs ” ; she had far too much knowl- 
edge of the world to imagine that she was the first 
woman in his life; and the information concerning 
her sex contained in his books — she had read them 
all while she was his secretary — was the keen, well- 
trained insight of a man of the world. Neverthe- 
less it had not occurred to her to ask herself this 
particular question before, and it was characteristic 
of her intelligence that so slight a reference should 
set her groping in his past. It had nothing to do 
with her, of course; he had made no vows and 
protestations, though there could not be a kinder or 
more attentive husband. 

They were at Capri, whence they were to com- 
mence their journey home. Verschoyle had bought 
a painting that day from a promising young artist, 
and they went out to join him, and watch him give 
the finishing touches to his picture. The strip of blue 
sea with the clear purple shadows, the picturesque 
houses, the group of lounging peasants, the fishing- 
91 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

boats moored to the quay, would remind them of 
Italy when they were home in London. 

After chatting awhile with their artist friend, they 
turned to walk back to their hotel. In one of the 
narrow stony ways they came suddenly upon a lady 
who was buying flowers. 

She was speaking bad Italian with an English ac- 
cent, and Verschoyle exclaimed as his eyes fell on 
her. 

She raised her face at that moment, and he saw it 
in full as he passed. 

“ Is it some one you know, Anthony ? ” asked 
Alice. 

“ No. I thought I knew her,” he said. “ The hair 
and figure reminded me of — an old friend.” 

“ Of course you must have lots of friends I don’t 
know,” she said. 

“ Of course,” he answered, absently. 

He kicked a loose stone out of his way, and 
walked on without noticing that she had stopped to 
look at a window full of coral and tortoise-shell. 
She followed him presently. 

“ Wait for me ! You’ve forgotten me, Anthony ! ” 

“ No, I haven’t forgotten you,” he answered, look- 
ing up and smiling. “ We haven’t bought your tor- 
toiseshell brushes and combs yet, have we? We’ll 
come out and get them after lunch. It’s time to go 
in now.” 


92 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He took her hand, and they went on side by side. 

But his thoughtfulness and momentary neglect 
had reminded her of the question which had flashed 
into her mind this morning. Had he ever been seri- 
ously in love, and had a red-haired woman with a 
fine full figure had anything to do with his im- 
patience at unreasonableness in her sex? 


93 


Chapter X 

A LICE found the journey home even pleas- 
anter than the setting out. She was used 
to being Mrs. Anthony Verschoyle, and 
the excitement of her bridal days had quieted down 
into peaceful happiness. She looked forward with 
delight to returning to the Victoria Street flat, 
which was already so familiar to her. It would be 
a treat to have such a beautiful home of her own, 
and to see London from the new standpoint. There 
would be the pleasure, too, of distributing the treas- 
ures they had bought in Italy; and of meeting her 
husband’s friends. 

When they arrived, it was peculiar and gratify- 
ing to remember in what a different capacity she used 
formerly to enter his doors, and to recall the old 
hopeless depression made the present taste sweeter 
in her mouth. There was the square hall where she 
used to take off her things, the study, and reception 
rooms. The large bedroom which she now entered 
for the first time, and the dressing-room beyond 
had been refurnished. She saw at once that every- 
thing was new. 


94 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ You are good, Anthony/' she said. “ It’s 
lovely." 

It was late afternoon — they had stopped in Paris 
en route — and a glow of well-being and content 
filled her veins as she presided over the tea-table 
from her arm-chair, and looked about her. They 
conversed, with the fluent ease of intimacy and mu- 
tual interests, about their new acquisitions, and cer- 
tain improvements they had planned for their home. 
It was not until they had gone in to look at the study 
together, and she found herself before the familiar 
writing-table, that the animation was arrested on 
her face. 

“ You’ll have to go on with your book now, won’t 
you ? ” she asked, gravely. 

“ Yes,’’ he answered. “ I shall be interviewing 
secretaries to-morrow morning. I hope I may find 
one as satisfactory as you were ! ’’ 

“ Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to help you, 
Anthony? ’’ she said in a low tone. “ It would make 
me proud and glad to think I was of use.’’ 

“ You are of use to me,’’ he said, gently, “ in an- 
other way. There, we need not talk about that! 
My wife has other duties and occupations to fill her 
time. I said from the beginning you should not be 
my secretary, but I appreciate your kind interest in 
my work, my dear.’’ 

She admitted to herself, if not to him, that she 

95 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

was greatly relieved by his refusal of her offer, al- 
though she had felt impelled, for some cause, to 
make it. While they were away, it had been easy 
to forget why he had married her ; his good-feeling 
and good-breeding had never let her feel neglected or 
unloved. Now that they were home, and the literary 
atmosphere enveloped him once more, and once more 
his art became the paramount object of his life, 
everything reminded her to what she owed her pres- 
ent state. Here she had written day after day at 
his dictation ; here she had told him her tragic story. 
Her tears were fresh upon her cheeks still ; the sym- 
pathy of his voice lived again. 

If he had yielded to her weak offer to go on with 
her old duties, she would surely have felt a recur- 
rence of the dislike he had begun to inspire in her 
before their marriage. As it was, she was able to 
put aside the burden of the past, and give herself 
over to the enjoyment of the present. What did it 
matter to her that she was his model, if he were con- 
sistently kind and affectionate to her, and there was 
no need for her to see the hateful book ? She did not 
think that she would ever read it, unless he could 
assure her that there was absolutely nothing in it 
which could cause her pain. Even then, she would 
not venture, perhaps. Why should she seek to revive 
the pangs and emotions which had made her heart 
ache formerly, Every fresh page, too, would be 
96 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

turned in fresh suspense that he had found some 
disagreeable or paltry trait in her, discerned her 
meaner thoughts over well. She would not read it ; 
she would try to forget it. The cross was small ; he 
had given her so much that she could not sulk at 
bearing so light a burden for him. Nevertheless she 
did not ask for details of his work, and he volun- 
teered none; so by degrees the subject became tacitly 
tabooed between them. 

Verschoyle’s friends called on his wife; invita- 
tions were frequent and many. The play he had 
spoken of to her was produced, and her heart beat 
and her cheeks flushed when the hero of the evening 
came on the stage to bow his acknowledgments to an 
enthusiastic audience. Verschoyle bought his wife 
a brougham and a victoria, and they took a trip to 
Switzerland. Life had become so rich and full and 
varied, that she wondered how she could have borne 
her former state even with the sullen patience she 
had shown. 

One day after their return, she was descending 
from her carriage in Bond Street, when Mrs. Wil- 
son passed. The woman stared at her incredulously, 
with mouth agape, and Alice stopped at once, smil- 
ing. 

“ Have you forgotten me, Mrs. Wilson? ” 

“ Well, I’m blessed if it isn’t Alice Durand ! I 
couldn’t believe my eyes.” The clasp of her black 

97 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

cotton gloves relaxed, and a gleam of suspicion came 
into the light eyes, so like her nephew’s. “ You’re 
very fine,” she said. “ A carriage, dear me ! Have 
you come into a fortune ? ” 

“ I am married,” said Alice, abruptly. “ Didn’t 
you see the announcement in the papers ? I am mar- 
ried to Mr. Verschoyle, the novelist, whose secre- 
tary I used to be when I was staying with you.” 

“ And he’s married you ! ” repeated the boarding- 
house keeper, astonished. “ That was a good thing, 
wasn’t it? He seems to be doing very well.” 

“ He is — rather,” replied Alice, quietly amused. 
“ I must say,” remarked Mrs. Wilson, “ that I 
never saw you looking so well. . . . Quite a re- 

markable change. I shouldn’t have known you if 
you hadn’t stopped first. Though I always thought 
you’d make a good-looking woman with some more 
flesh on your bones. I’ve seen thin black crows of 
girls turn out that way before. I like your hat and 
cape, my dear. I hope it isn’t rude to make re- 
marks ! ” 

“ Not at all, Mrs. Wilson. I am glad you approve 
of them. The hat came from Paris. How is the 
house going on? Are Miss Gribble, and Mrs. Jack- 
son, and Mr. Barker still with you? ” 

“ Yes, and the Kennedys too, and the old captain, 
who is deafer than ever. They’ll be interested to 
98 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

hear about you. I suppose it’s no good asking you 
to come to tea one day? You’re too grand now.” 

“ I’ll come with pleasure,” said Alice. “ I thought 
of coming several times, but I always have so much 
to do. We’ve been abroad twice, you know, and we 
go out a great deal.” 

“You’ve been married some time, I suppose?” 
asked Mrs. Wilson. 

“ Yes, four months,” said Alice. “ Good-bye, 
Mrs. Wilson. I have to meet my husband, some- 
where. Remember me to everybody.” She laughed 
softly. “ How is — George ? ” 

“ I haven’t seen him lately. When I do, I’ll tell 
him I’ve seen you.” 

Mrs. Wilson pursued her way quite excited. 

Alice told Verschoyle that she had met George 
Wilson’s aunt. 

“ I believe she thought I wasn’t respectable at 
first,” she said laughing; “and afterwards I know 
she was dying to ask what your income was. I 
promised to go and see her.” 

“ You are not a snob,” he said. “ By the way, 
I met Lionel Saunderson just now. He wants your 
head for his new picture, but is afraid to speak to 
you in case you may consent to sit out of good nature 
and regret it afterwards. What do you say? It 
is a great compliment, of course.” 

99 


L.of C. 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She glowed. 

“ Yes, it is a compliment. Fancy an R. A. want- 
ing to paint me, Anthony ! ” 

“ Remarkable ! ” He laughed. “ You see you are 
really a pretty woman; it isn’t only I who think so. 
Will you write to him ? ” 

“ I suppose the sittings would take up a good 
deal of time,” she said, thoughtfully. “ You might 
be wanting me. It might be a nuisance.” 

“ Oh, I should agree, Alice. It will make me 
proud to see my wife in the Academy next year ! ” 

“ I wonder what I shall be this time — a Medusa 
or an angel ? ” she asked, with sudden bitterness. 
“ I seem to be a favourite model for every one ! My 
soul, and now my face.” 

He cast a pained glance at her, and stiffened. She 
turned away with a pettishness she had never shown 
before. He went out without speaking to her again, 
and she put down her needlework, and cried. She 
had been nervous, irritable, and unwell all day, and 
as she had not told him that she was feeling unwell, 
of course he could not be expected to comprehend 
the ensuing symptoms. She wished she hadn’t said 
that about her soul and her face; it sounded like a 
reproach, and God knows she had no right to find 
fault with him; and as little reason to be low- 
spirited. She had everything possible to make a 


xoo 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

woman happy; her days were a round of ease and 
pleasure. To remind herself how much she had to 
be grateful for, she precipitated herself backward 
a few months; shut her eyes and recalled the dingi- 
est lodging-house bedroom she had ever lived in, 
and the worst-cooked chop which had ever been her 
lot ; and opened them to feast upon the art treasures 
of her drawing-room, the elegance of her gown, and 
the diamonds on her hand. She was better-looking, 
too, than she had ever been in her life, or had ever 
expected to be, which must be a satisfaction to any 
woman ; physically and mentally she had grown since 
her marriage; the bud nipped by the frost had ex- 
panded and bloomed into fair womanhood in the 
hothouse. She owed everything to her husband, 
and she had snubbed him. 

Fresh tears flowed. 

“ It is because I am not quite the thing to-day,” 
she told herself. “ I’ll say I am sorry when he 
comes home.” 

They had had tiffs of a more decided kind before ; 
she was quick tempered, and he could be cynical and 
severe. But he had no sullenness, and she was peni- 
tent in a moment. It was the peculiar ingratitude 
of her petulance in this case which moved her to 
such deep remorse. She despised herself for the ill- 
temper she had no right to feel, much less to show. 

IOI 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

What must he think of her? Would he write this 
petty discord down as a black mark against her 
name? 

Her hands trembled over the needlework, and she 
dropped it, and strolled about the room restlessly. 
She wished she had spoken to him again before he 
went out. The longer an unkind word is left unre- 
tracted, the deeper impression it makes upon the 
mind. All the time he was out he would be thinking 
her childish and unreasonable at the least, and once 
he had praised her for the very quality she lacked 
to-day. And one never knows when something may 
not happen. He might be run over, and she might 
never see him again to say that she was sorry. 

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright and 
humid when the butler came to the door announcing 
a visitor. 

“ Mrs. Standish, ma’am.” 

An elegant woman in mourning appeared, and 
for a moment she and Alice confronted each other 
in silence. The stranger smiled. 

“ You don’t know me,” she said, advancing with 
outstretched hand. “ In Tony’s absence I must in- 
troduce myself. You have heard him speak of his 
cousin, Laura Standish?” 

“ No,” replied Alice. “ I did not know that he 
had a cousin.” 

“ The humbug ! Has he forgotten my existence ! 


102 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

And yet we were very good friends before my mar- 
riage. I have just returned from India, and nat- 
urally I came to see Tony first, as he is my only 
relative.” 

“ Indeed,” said Alice, warmly. “ I am sure he 
will be delighted to see you. I am expecting him 
home at six o’clock. You are not in a hurry, I hope ? 
Only that we have an engagement for this evening, 
I would beg you to remain and dine with us.” 

“ You are very kind,” murmured Mrs. Standish. 
“ You must come and see me. I am stopping at 
the Langham. It is quieter for a lone lorn woman 
than one of the big new hotels.” 

“You are alone then?” said Alice, politely. 
“ Your husband is not with you? ” 

“ Dear me, no ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Standish. “ I 
am a widow, you know, only I won’t wear weeds 
because I hate them so.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon ! ” said Alice. 

“ You need not apologize, my dear. Poor Arthur 
has been dead three months, so the wound has had 
time to heal ! ” 

She laughed softly, and Alice received the impres- 
sion that she was heartless or had not cared for the 
departed very much. She was tall, and splendidly 
formed, with red hair, aquiline features, a well-bred 
voice, and the manner of a woman of the world. 
For some reason she made Alice feel young, self- 
103 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

conscious, and gauche. Shyness was not one of 
her failings as a rule, but she had the idea that she 
was being criticized, which had a paralyzing effect 
on her, and she had a particular desire to appear 
at her best before her husband’s cousin. 

“ And so,” resumed Mrs. Standish, “ Tony has 
gone the way of all flesh, after escaping the toils 
so long! It was such a surprise to hear that he 
was married! I could scarcely believe it.” 

“ Why not ? ” said Alice. 

“ I had an idea that he was invulnerable. A man 
of his position who remains single till thirty-five has 
a good chance of keeping his freedom altogether. 
You must be very fascinating! ” 

“ I don’t think so,” said Alice, colouring. “ I — 
I suppose it suited him to marry. Do you take cream 
and sugar in your tea, Mrs. Standish ? ” 

“ Thanks. Dear Tony, he has made a wonderful 
name for himself. How did you come to meet ? ” 

Alice hesitated. 

“ I was his secretary,” she said at length, bravely. 
“ Didn’t you know ? ” 

“ I have only just returned from the Back of Be- 
yond, you must remember,” said Mrs. Standish, 
smiling. “ His secretary ! Indeed ! That is quite 
a romance. I received no more from him than a 
newspaper cutting. He was always a bad corre- 
spondent.” 


104 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She was stirring her tea as a latch-key grated in 
the front door. 

“ Here is my husband already,” said Alice. “ He 
must have guessed that you were here ! ” 

Verschoyle came into the room with some flowers 
in his hand. 

“ I brought you these, Alice,” he began, and then 
stopped short as his eyes fell on the visitor’s face. 
She had risen, and they confronted each other in 
silence for a moment. There was a smile on her 
lips which trembled — a very beautiful smile. 

“ Laura,” he said, in a low tone of wonder, and 
dropped the flowers to take her hands. 

“ You did not expect me, did you? ” she said. “ I 
thought I would give everybody a little surprise.” 

“ You were always an erratic person. I am aw- 
fully glad to see you, my dear woman.” 

“ And I to see you,” she said. “ You haven’t 
changed a bit in five years. It is the same old Tony.” 
Her tone sharpened from sentiment to vivacity, and 
she withdrew her hands from his. “ There is an 
opportunity for you! For God’s sake say some- 
think kind, or I shall feel ninety ! ” 

“ You look seventeen.” 

“What an insult! You know how I always de- 
spised an ingenue. Make it five-and-twenty, Tony.” 

“ By all means. I only meant to convey that you 
were more charming than when you went away.” 
105 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ That’s better. And so,” she added, sinking on 
to the couch again, “ you are married ! ” 

“ Yes.” 

He smiled, and simultaneously they both looked 
at his wife, who was sitting somewhat neglected be- 
hind the tea-table. 

“ It is my turn to congratulate you. Why didn’t 
you send me a piece of wedding-cake? ” 

“We didn’t have one, did we Alice?” said Ver- 
schoyle. “ Our wedding was a very quiet affair. 
I hate a fuss.” 

“ Yes, you always hated a fuss,” she said, with 
a slight laugh. “ I suppose I ought to have written 
to you, but as I was coming home, I thought my fe- 
licitations would keep.” 

“ I’ll excuse you.” 

“ But I didn’t forget you. I have brought you a 
wedding present to prove it.” It was to Alice she 
spoke now. “ I hope you like repousse silver tea- 
sets? They are the things everybody brings from 
India, I believe. I couldn’t find anything else 
but shawls, and I wanted something for both of 
you.” 

“ How very kind of you to think of us,” said 
Alice. “ We shall value it doubly because it will be 
the only present we have received.” 

“ Really? What hard luck! ” 

“ Our own fault,” said Verschoyle. “ The privacy 
106 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

of our wedding, you know. Are you going to settle 
here, Laura? ” 

“ In London, do you mean, or England ? I shall 
make a home somewhere, certainly.” 

“ Of course you will take off your things and dine 
with us,” he said hospitably. 

“ I should be delighted,” she said. “ I will not 
pretend that I hanker after a solitary meal at my 
hotel. But your wife tells me that you are dining 
out?” 

“ Yes, we are going to the Ellisons,” said Alice. 
“ Don’t you remember, Anthony ? ” 

“ Oh, send an excuse. There are two of us, so 
our absence cannot disarrange the table by leaving 
anybody partnerless.” 

“ As you like,” said Alice. 

“ Pray don’t let me keep your wife at home if she 
wishes to go out,” said Mrs. Standish, amiably. “ I 
know how tiresome it is to have one’s arrangements 
upset at the last moment. I can come another day.” 

“ You don’t mind staying at home, do you, 
Alice?” asked Verschoyle. 

“ Not at all,” she replied, “ if you can think of 
a suitable excuse for our absence.” 

“ Say the truth — that my cousin has returned un- 
expectedly from India, and something civil in the 
way of regrets, and send a messenger boy with it.” 

“ Very well,” said Alice, obediently. 

107 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She went away to write and dispatch the note. 
Anthony had dropped into an arm-chair. Mrs. 
Standish looked at him. The door was shut ; 
they were alone. A moment had come which 
must bring many emotions with it for both of them, 
many memories, as the echoes in a sea-shell recall 
the storms of the past. 

She was twenty-four when he saw her last, and 
she had changed little. Five years — even five years 
of India — do not make much difference to a young 
woman who takes care of herself. She was as 
beautiful as ever — better looking in some ways per- 
haps. Her figure had gained by its fulness; there 
was a deeper subtlety in the smile of her lips and 
the glance of her eyes. Black suited her colouring 
too. 

It was the woman who spoke first, with a tremor 
in her voice. 

“ You must have been on your honeymoon when 
my husband died. What a curious coincidence ! ” 

“ I suppose it is. Life can be so unreal ! ” 

“ You found consolation at last in your secretary. 
How romantic of you! Had you been reading the 
Family Herald? ” 

He took time to concoct his answer. He was a 
man who was seldom at a loss, but this meeting was 
one of the episodes of his life. They had parted with 
passionate abandon on the side of the woman, who 

xo8 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

had been willing to throw herself into his arms for- 
ever ; with renunciation on the side of the man, who 
owed as much to their kinship as to his own honour. 
Now that they were again together, to pretend that 
he had forgotten would be an affectation ; to suggest 
that he still loved her and regretted the sport of 
destiny which had kept him single for five years in 
order to marry him a month before her husband 
died, would be to insult his wife, himself, and her. 
He sought refuge in an attitude of sentimental 
comedy, suggested by her last remark, as though 
the old passion which had rent their souls in twain 
had been no more than a trivial affair between a man 
and woman of the world. 

“ Ah, my dear Laura,” he said, smiling, “ you 
should have regained your freedom sooner! I tried 
to wear the willow for ever, but what would you 
have? Man is human, flesh is weak. Alice is nice, 
is she not ? ” 

“ Oh, charming! ” She smiled too, and her eyes 
wandered, those deep blue eyes which contrasted so 
artistically with her Burne-Jones hair. “ You used 
not to admire dark women, but of course your taste 
has changed.” 

“ We all change as we grow older,” he said. 

“You brute!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean 
that I am looking plain ? ” 

“ Heaven forbid that you should accuse me of 

109 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

such vile imputation ! ” he said, with hands upraised 
in affected horror. “ Did I not say that you were 
more charming than ever ! ” 

She had fallen in with his tone, he was happy to 
see. No doubt she was as relieved as he was to find 
an easy way of breaking the ice, and beginning a 
natural, cousinly friendship. 

They were talking of mutual acquaintances in 
England and India, when Alice returned. 

“ The note has gone,” she said. “ Anthony 
why have you let your cousin keep on her things? 
Would you like to come into the bedroom and take 
them off? ” 

“ Thanks,” said Mrs. Standish, rising. “ You will 
have to excuse my walking costume, both of you. I 
did not expect to stay.” 

The women went away together — the woman he 
had loved, and the woman he had married, and Ver- 
schoyle sank into uneasy reverie. 

What did Laura think of him ? Her comedy was 
a trifle forced, perhaps, but there might be nothing 
more tragic behind than the chagrin of a spoilt 
woman at the loss of her empire. It would have 
been much more flattering to her vanity, he was 
aware, if she had returned to find him still free, 
although his marriage, contracted under the impres- 
sion that he would never love again, had been the 
greatest compliment, if she had known it, which his 


no 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

fidelity could have paid her. Once she had cost 
him more pangs than he cared to remember; he 
would have given the rest of his life for a year with 
her; and now, after five years, they met again. His 
thoughts grew feverish. . . . 

The past and the present; they stood together, 
the two women of his life, and he wondered again 
what one of them was thinking. That red hair of 
hers gleamed like burnished copper; she flamed 
across the room, and her splendour threw the quieter 
style of Alice in the shade. 

The girl sat subdued and silent, as though con- 
scious of a disadvantage. He was annoyed. She 
was his wife, whatever the other had been. The 
possessor would have had her make the most of her- 
self under this woman’s eyes. Why should she 
seem stupid, when she could sometimes talk so well ? 
He knew Laura’s bitter-sweet smile of old. If she 
went away and pitied him ! 

He was doubly charming, in order to cover his 
annoyance and Alice’s silence. Naturally, rem- 
iniscences formed a large part of the discourse be- 
tween Laura Standish and himself. They could 
smile over a dozen old incidents which conveyed no 
meaning to the young wife. Laura talked much of 
India too, and society there. 'Kipling was discussed, 
of course; she said his women were exaggerated, 
and Verschoyle looked sceptical. 


in 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ You were always a dangerous woman your- 
self,” he said. “ I don’t take your opinion.” 

“ I was young and frivolous when you knew me,” 
she retorted. “ Now I am — nearly thirty, alas ! ” 

If she had not known that he knew her age, she 
would have said “ twenty-eight.” 

He saw her home in a hansom at ten o’clock. He 
remembered bringing her home from the theatre in 
a hansom once upon a time, and no doubt she re- 
membered it too. Old sensations revived as he 
saw her red hair beside him in the lamplight; and 
the whirl of the wheels, the pattering of the horse’s 
hoofs on the asphalt, and the scent of violets, drew 
pictures in the night for both of them. 

“ I am afraid we have talked a great deal of non- 
sense,” she said, suddenly. “ It makes me feel quite 
sentimental to be with you again, Tony! You said 
that you would fix a night for you and your wife to 
come and dine with me ? ” 

“ I am afraid we are full up for this week, and if 
you knew how busy I was, my dear Laura ! ” 

“ Well, make it next week. Come Monday.” 

“ Not Monday, I am afraid.” 

“ I won’t be put off ! ” she exclaimed. “ Tues- 
day, then.” 

“ So be it.” 

He went into the hotel with her, remained a few 
minutes talking in the hall, and said good-night. 

112 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

When he stopped under a lamp-post to light a 
cigar he realized that the evening had been one of 
tension, which was only now beginning to relax. 
He had been wound up like a machine to smile, to 
say the right thing, to maintain an easy familiarity 
neither self-conscious nor overdone. He had played 
a difficult part well enough, in fact, to earn his own 
commendation and esteem, but — how much of his 
attitude had been feigned, and how much real ? 

With the night air on his face, he walked along 
thinking, but his reflections seemed to be curiously 
trivial even to himself. This woman had held his 
heart in thrall for five years, and yet, in the first 
hours of their re-union, he had been able to per- 
ceive that her hair was dyed ! 

Surprise dawned upon him, amazement. The 
reality was so much less potent than the fancy; the 
woman herself had so much less effect upon him 
than the memory to which his imagination had 
clung. He was almost chagrined to discover that 
the tragedy of his life had become a farce, that he 
had been wearing the willow for a ghost. The old 
passion was dead. He no longer feared her, thrilled 
at her touch. The faded rose-leaves of the past, 
clung with faint sweet perfume to her presence, but 
it was merely sentiment that she aroused — refined 
sentiment and warm friendship for a woman who 
was related to him, and who shared with him alone 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the memory of many confidences and a keen grief. 
If she had found him single, the old influence might 
have reasserted itself; he might have married her, 
who knows? But he was not sorry that it was be- 
yond his power to do so. He was content with the 
step he had taken from motives so purely intel- 
lectual, so curiously passionless. 

It was an intense relief to him to make sure that 
this was so. The first sight of her had stirred him 
to the core. What a tragedy if he had loved her 
still! How easily may a man make a ruin of his 
life ! By so slight a span of time had he missed the 
opportunity of her widowhood! He only hoped 
that her memory had been even shorter than his own. 
He thought of her kindly. She was very beautiful. 
A woman of society, and used to admiration, the 
caressing sentiment of her manner probably meant 
no more than the habitual desire to attract. 

He would not be at all offended if she cared for 
him no longer. He had no more right to expect 
loyalty to the past from her, than she had had to 
expect it from him. They had loved, and suffered 
a while, and all had blown over. 

Alice had not gone to bed, and she came to the 
drawing-room door as he entered. 

“ Have I been gone long? ” he asked, cheerfully. 
“ She would make me come in and have a whisky- 
and-soda.” 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ It isn’t late,” she said. “ Anthony, I am sorry 
I was so cross.” 

“ What was the matter with you? ” He took her 
hand, and rubbed it gently between his own. “ I 
thought you were very quiet.” 

She stared at him with large solemn eyes. 

“ What do you mean ? I meant what I said to 
you when we were talking about Mr. Saunderson.” 

“ Ah ! ” He dropped her hand. “ I had for- 
given — forgotten, you see. Didn’t I bring you 
flowers as a peace-offering this afternoon? Laura 
was here, so I could not talk to you then. I am 
going to put the book aside for a time.” 

“ No — no ! ” she cried, vehemently. “ You 
haven’t forgiven, or you wouldn’t say that ! I shall 
feel horrible if you don’t go on with it — as though 
I were in your debt for everything I possessed, 
down to the shoes on my feet and the food I eat. I 
couldn’t bear that, Anthony ! ” 

“ My dear child,” he said, “ what ideas you have ! 
It is usual for a woman to be supported by her hus- 
band.” 

“ But our case is different. I knew at the time 
why you married me. Words were not wanted; I 
quite understood. You wished to see how I should 
develop with a change of circumstances; you tried an 
experiment at some cost to yourself. You thought 
the conditions worth while, and so did I. I couldn’t 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

be so mean as to ask you to stop now. Of course — 
of course the book must be written/’ 

He put his arm round her very tenderly and drew 
her to his side, and kissed her brow. 

“ Of course it must and shall be written,” he said. 
“ I only meant to put it aside for a little while, dear. 
It was never my intention to finish it this year.” 

“ I was feeling headachey and nervous to-day,” 
she murmured* with a tremble of her lips. “ You 
must excuse me. I hate to be a fool ! ” 

“ You are anything but a fool,” he said. “ Be 
easy ; I have a great opinion of the contents of that 
little head of yours. And you stayed up for me in 
spite of feeling unwell? That was sweet of you.” 

He kissed her again. His manner had never been 
more gentle and affectionate. She drew away from 
him nevertheless, and he looked conscious of a re- 
pulse. 

“ I think I’ll go to bed now,” she said. 

“ Yes, I can see you are tired. I had really for- 
gotten the incident of the afternoon when Laura 
was here, or I should have known why you were so 
quiet.” He laughed a little. “ I thought you didn’t 
like Laura.” 

She coloured, and did not speak. 

“ Don’t you like her ? ” he asked, curiously. 

“ Not very much,” replied the girl. “ I shouldn’t 
116 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

have been so rude as to say so if you hadn’t asked 
me. She is very handsome.” 

“ Why don’t you like her ? ” he asked. 

He was always interested in her impressions of 
persons and things, and in this case he was doubly 
interested to discover why Laura, an undoubtedly 
fascinating woman when she chose, had failed to 
please his wife. 

“ I — don’t — know,” murmured Alice. 

She did know, but for once she could not bring 
herself to tell him what she thought. It had an- 
noyed her to hear a stranger call him “ Tony,” when 
she knew that she would not venture upon such a 
familiarity herself. The woman had made her feel 
an outsider in her own home, and she resented it as 
she always resented an injury, fancied or real. If 
Mrs. Standish never gave her any other cause for 
dislike, that intimate shortening of her husband’s 
name would be enough to prevent them being real 
friends. 

“ You must know ! ” insisted Verschoyle, watch- 
ing her under his lids as he had a way of doing 
when he did not quite understand her. 

“ She is your cousin : I do not wish to comment 
upon her.” 

“ You provoking minx! ” 

She laughed ; the cloud had sped. 

ii 7 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I shall probably like her better when I know her 
better. I always detest strangers.” 

When she was alone, however, she frowned once 
more. A faculty of putting two and two together 
was part of her fatal heritage. She always remem- 
bered the things which people of happier tempera- 
ment forgot. In this case she recalled two inci- 
dents of their honeymoon which had conveyed some- 
thing definite to her at the time, and asked herself a 
pertinent question : 

“ Is Mrs. Standish the red-haired woman who 
was unreasonable ? ” 

Laura’s remark about the friendship which had 
existed between “ Tony ” and herself before her 
marriage, and a certain caressing note in her voice, 
suggested an old tendresse to Alice’s suspicious na- 
ture. Had there ever been anything between her 
husband and his cousin? 

“ At any rate he didn’t want to marry her, or I 
suppose he could have done so,” she thought. “ It 
must have been one-sided, if anything.” 


118 


Chapter XI 

M RS. STANDISH knew better. Her little 
prudent transposition of facts had not 
been wasted. She was pacing her bed- 
room in a wrapper at this moment, thinking all the 
things she could not say. Her red hair hung down ; 
she might have been a witch from the wildness of 
her eyes, the contortion of feature which portrayed 
the anguish of her soul. 

She had not forgotten; she loved him still. By 
her husband’s deathbed, she had watched the life 
flicker out with an uplifting of her spirit which no 
conventional grief could tame. She had never loved 
him, even when she married him as a girl. Since 
she had known Verschoyle, and the one great pas- 
sion of her life, she had writhed like the bound in 
purgatory. 

Of course she had passed her time as other women 
of her class. She had been admired and spoilt by 
idle men with nothing else to do, she had been a 
hostess of renown, and a correct wife, as the world 
goes, with a faint, false smile and a civil word ever 
ready for the man who worked for her, and hope- 
119 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

lessness like a canker at her breast. That with his 
bull’s strength Standish might die before her, while 
she was still young enough to be desired of men, 
was the last thing she had dared to expect. But it 
had come, and for a day or two what dreams she 
had dreamed ! The rose and golden flush of a heav- 
enly dawn had spread across the sky ; no girl await- 
ing her lover had ever felt more tenderly disposed to 
all the world. Her plans were made for the home- 
coming; she had already rehearsed the meeting 
with the man who had torn himself away from 
her with such a wrench five years ago. That he 
would marry her eagerly, she had not doubted. It 
was not in her nature to imagine that she could be 
forgotten. And he had not married; he had re- 
mained single amidst a host of temptations, courted 
and admired. 

The newspaper which had dashed her from 
heaven to earth, was among her letters still, and 
she could close her eyes and see the blue pencil- 
marks and the printed words. 

For a day and a night she had shut herself up 
like a wounded beast in her lair. Her guilty glad- 
ness at her husband’s death had turned into a scor- 
pion’s sting. 

It was curiosity concerning the girl he had mar- 
ried, and a morbid fascination, which had brought 
her home so soon. A wiser woman would have 


120 



“Still young enough to be desired of men.” Page 120. 






\ 









































A PROPHET of the REAL 

avoided London for a time, but she had been unable 
to resist the temptation of seeing him again. She 
thought she could trust herself; perhaps she had 
hoped that he would have changed to disillusion 

her. 

Needless to say, her opinion of Alice was small. 
The girl had good features, she was obliged to ad- 
mit, but that was all. 

“ If she had not told me that she was his secre- 
tary, I should have guessed her something of the 
sort,” she thought, with the sneer of bitter jeal- 
ousy. “ ‘ Yeung person ’ is stamped on her for any 
eyes to read. That Anthony of all men should have 
made such a marriage! I did not think there was 
any one in the peerage good enough for him ! ” 

If he had married the daughter of a duke, a belle 
of society, even a fashionable actress, she would 
have felt less chagrin. But to be succeeded in his 
heart by a young woman of no importance whom 
the merest chance had thrown across his path! It 
was unendurable. 

“ Does he love her as he loved me ? ” she won- 
dered. “ Can he love a woman so different from 
me?” 

His words came back : “ We all change as we 
grow older.” She did not believe any man could 
change as much in that way. 

“ If I had been here, he would not have married 


121 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

her,” she told herself. “ My absence ruined me. 
Men are all alike. With them absence makes the 
heart grow fonder — of somebody else ! ” 

She had a miserable night, tossing and turning — 
feverish excitement at meeting him again, mingled 
with despair at the circumstances. To be obliged 
to smile at his wife and talk to him as she would 
to an outsider was tragic. Why had she been such 
a fool as to come to London ? Why had she not re- 
mained out of sight for ever, instead of preparing 
unnecessary torments for herself? She hated Alice. 
It had cost her an effort which made her heart bleed 
to talk civilly to that little cat of a girl. And she 
had asked her to dinner, and would play the hostess 
charmingly, no doubt. Anthony would expect them 
to kiss, perhaps ! She shuddered all down her spine. 

“ Never!” she said, heroically. “Never, what- 
ever he thinks of me ! I draw the line at that ! ” 
She had other things to trouble her besides Ver- 
schoyle’s marriage. Her husband had not been as 
careful with his money, it seemed, as most people 
had given him credit for. He had speculated un- 
luckily the last few years, with the result that his 
widow found herself left with no more than a couple 
of thousand pounds when the debts were paid. 

A careful woman would have invested the money 
and lived as best she could on the proceeds. Laura 
Standish was an extravagant woman, and unpracti- 


122 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

cal besides. She had never had anything to do 
with money beyond spending it, so she had come 
home first-class as a matter of course, and put up at 
the Langham, and postponed the evil moment of 
deciding what to do until she had seen Anthony. 

Now that she had seen him, she was no nearer the 
cool and collected frame of mind suitable to the con- 
sideration of ways and means. 

“ I’ll ask Anthony what I am to do,” she thought. 
“ He was always so clever, for a novelist, at sums.” 

It was such a legitimate excuse for seeing him 
again before Tuesday, and alone, that she plucked 
up spirit to write him a plaintive little note. 

“ Dear Tony, — I am awfully worried about busi- 
ness. If you can spare half-an-hour this afternoon, 
will you come round and give me your advice? So 
sorry to trespass on your valuable time, but I don't 
know to whom else to go. I shall be in from five 
till seven.” 

When it came to the signature she paused. She 
was going to sign herself “ yours always,” but 
thought better of it, and put “ sincerely yours ” in- 
stead. He was a sober married man; it was use- 
less to frighten him ; besides, the woman might see 
the note. 

Being so unused to economizing — the dead Stan- 
123 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


dish had been lavishly generous to her, his one re- 
deeming trait — it did not occur to her that she could 
possibly do without some new clothes on her return 
to London. A woman must dress, even if she were 
a widowed pauper. She spent the morning in Bond 
Street, among the old familiar shops, ordered a few 
gowns, and bought a couple of hats, and a sup- 
ply of shoes and other necessaries. Everything was 
so satisfactory after India. She felt in a better 
mood when she returned with quite an appetite for 
lunch. It is astonishing how trifles will depress or 
exhilarate. Tony was still the capture of an insig- 
nificant rival’s bow and spear, but she had found 
such a lovely toque. And he would come this after- 
noon, she was sure of it, and after all to see him 
sometimes was better than nothing — if he did not 
love his wife too much. 

At five she awaited him in her most becoming 
gown, and he did not disappoint her. 

“ You good fellow,” she said, extending a soft, 
white hand to him with a still softer smile. “ I 
suppose you are wishing me back to India! I was 
always exacting, unreasonable, and a nuisance — 
wasn’t I ? ” 

“ My dear Laura,” he said, pressing the hand, 
“ you know that I am ever at your service. What 
is the matter? What can I do for you? ” 

“ I am sure I don’t know what you can do for 
124 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

me : I have nothing to suggest,” she said. “ The 
inspiration must come from your great mind, my 
friend. The fact is, that I have about two thou- 
sand pounds in the world.” 

“ Two thousand pounds!” repeated Verschoyle, 
aghast. “ Is that all ? ” 

“ I think,” she said, pensively, “ that it may not 
be as much when I have paid my milliner’s and 
dressmaker’s bills.” 

“ It is very little,” he said, looking serious. “ I 
always supposed Standish to be a rich man.” 

“ He made a great deal of money,” she said, “ but 
I suppose we spent it.” 

“ What folly — what criminal recklessness ! Did 
he make no provision at all for you?* Didn’t he in- 
sure his life? ” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“ I am afraid it is all gone, dear.” 

“ A man,” said Verschoyle, strongly, “ has no 
right to marry a woman like you, and leave her in- 
adequately provided for.” 

“ I quite agree with you,” she said, “ although 
he was very generous to me. I will say that for 
him.” 

“ Of course, the money must be invested at once,” 
said Verschoyle. 

“ I have no doubt that you are right.” 

“ In something perfectly secure; not Consols — 

125 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the rate of interest is so low. I will get my lawyer, 
who is perfectly trustworthy, to secure you at live 
per cent.” 

‘‘How kind of you, Tony! What will my in- 
come be ? ” 

“ Two thousand pounds at five per cent, is one 
hundred a year.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” she exclaimed, in horror, “ do 
you imagine that I can live upon one hundred a 
year ? Why my clothes cost three ! ” 

He looked helpless and concerned. 

“ I know it is very little — to you. But I am 
afraid I cannot make a better investment for your 
money than that, Laura. All I can suggest is that 
— that ” 

She stopped him with a hand upon his arm. The 
half-frivolous, half-pathetic tone she had adopted 
this afternoon gave place to earnest distress. 

“ No ! no ! Tony ! I know what you are going 
to say. Don’t imagine for a moment that I meant 
to suggest anything so low. Of course, I only 
want you to give me the best advice in your power 
— nothing more.” 

“ I wasn’t going to offer you money,” he said, 
looking down. “ I have a little place in the country 
somewhere which happens to be standing empty at 
the moment. It is quite small — just a few rooms, 
and a patch of garden where you could grow your 
126 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

vegetables, and — and keep fowls and that sort of 
thing. I don’t believe any one will take it, so if 
you’d live in it, and keep it from falling into disre- 
pair, you would be conferring a favour on me 
rather than otherwise. It would save you from 
paying rent, at any rate ; and food is so cheap there 
that you could come out on a hundred a year.” 

“ Why are you sure that it won’t let ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, people want modern improvements nowa- 
days,” said Verschoyle, vaguely. “ Bath-rooms 
and electric light, and all that sort of thing. The 
house is three miles from a town, too.” 

“ Three miles ! ” repeated Mrs. Standish, with a 
little shudder. 

She had never cared for walking as a girl, and 
after a prolonged residence in India, the idea of 
being separated from the nearest oasis of civiliza- 
tion by three miles filled her with unmitigated hor- 
ror. 

“ I suppose it would be dull,” he said, deprecat- 
ingly. “ But you would make friends, of course.” 

“ With the clergyman and the doctor and the 
squire,” she said. “ My dear fellow, I should die 
of ennui; but it is generous of you to propose it, and 
beggars cannot be choosers. I will think it over, 
with your permission.” 

“ Take your leisure about it, by all means.” 

127 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ You don’t think it would run to a pony-trap, do 
you?” she asked, ingratiatingly. “Just a little 
cheap chaise of some kind and a Shetland to drag 
me about? ” 

“ On a hundred a year ? ” he murmured. “ Urn ! ” 

“ If the country is as cheap as you say? I don’t 
see how I could possibly manage without one,” she 
said. “ The tradespeople would never discover me. 
I should die of starvation like a shipwrecked mari- 
ner on a desert island ! ” 

He smiled. 

“ There is a village close at hand, where you could 
buy the common necessaries of life.” 

“ That makes a difference, certainly. Clothes 
would not come under that heading, of course ! One 
cannot expect to dress on a hundred a year; one 
must be content to cover oneself. I shall manage 
so badly, I am sure, that even that may not be possi- 
ble after a little while.” 

“ You are heartrending,” he said. “ To think of 
you, my dear Laura, who always dress so charm- 
ingly, in rags, or — worse still! — an ill-made gown, 
makes me shudder. I should not sleep of nights. 
If I permitted such an outrage, no sin of my life 
would weigh so heavily on my conscience. Why — 
why won’t you let your only kinsman, who happens 
to have more than enough for his own needs, help 
to supply yours ? ” 


128 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ No, Tony ! ” she said, sweetly, and her limpid 
blue eyes grew softer still. “ It is not as though 
you were alone. You have a wife now.” 

“ My wife would have no right to interfere, and 
would not seek to do so. She would not even 
know.” 

“ Ah, you propose to have secrets already ! ” 

“ I tell Alice everything that concerns her ; this 
would not.” 

“ She might be of a different opinion, if you gave 
her the chance,” said the woman, slyly. “ Wives 
are by nature jealous, my dear Tony. Perhaps you 
haven’t found that out? ” 

“ My wife has had no occasion to be jealous.” 

“ Yet,” she supplemented. “ Say yet! ” 

“ She will never have any occasion to be jealous,” 
he added, steadily. 

“ How long have you been married ? Four 
months, is it not? You are a good fellow, Tony, 
but are you different from other men ? ” 

He refused to smile, and she saw that he took his 
new role seriously at present, and would not respond. 
She had a great deal of tact. 

“ Forgive me,” she murmured. “ I am in such 
an ill-humour with the world, that I scoff at every- 
thing and every one. You are different from other 
men. Who should know that better than I ? ” 

He made a gesture of dissent. A reminiscence 
129 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

had given a dreamy beauty to the woman’s face, and 
she looked out of the window with parted lips, her 
hands — those long white hands which he had once 
kissed in a frenzy of hopeless passion — lying idly on 
her lap. Her thoughts had gone back, dragging 
his with them. They both seemed to see an evening 
of summer, and hear the night-wind soughing 
through the trees. 

She aroused herself with a start and a sigh, 
effective if simulated, and passed her hand across 
her brow to brush aside the past. 

“ Yes, you are always a good fellow, Anthony; 
and as you are my cousin, I will consider myself at 
liberty to think over this offer of yours concerning 
the house. It is almost the same as taking money 
from you, and you will wonder at the distinction 
without a difference. But I may be able to persuade 
myself that I am improving your property for you, 
and I couldn’t — I really couldn’t — face cheap lodg- 
ings or a boarding-house ; and that is what it would 
come to, I suppose, if I totally rejected your aid. 
Shall I let you know in a day or two ? ” 

“ When you like, Laura.” 

“ Let me see, you and your wife are to dine with 
me to-morrow, are you not? ” 

“ You were kind enough to ask us. But why 
don’t you come to us again instead ! ” 

“ You remind me that I am a pauper, and cannot 
130 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

afford the luxury of entertaining my friends ! ” She 
smiled with an affectation of childish gaiety. “ I 
shan’t give you champagne ! ” she added. “ Claret 
— a cheap brand ! You won’t give my position 
away to any one, will you ? ” 

“ Certainly not.” 

“ I confide in you,” she said, “ because we are old 
friends. But, even as a pauper, I have my little 
pride.” 

“ Regard me as your lawyer or your doctor,” said 
Verschoyle, gravely, “ and trust me without fear.” 
He rose. “ I must leave you now. We dine out 
to-night. Is there anything I can do for you be- 
fore we meet again ? ” 

“ No ! no ! Good-bye.” 

Her hand lingered in his. She walked to the hall 
with him. 

“ Excuse my reluctance to part from you,” she 
said. “ It is rather lonely.” 

She looked lonely to him somehow at that mo- 
ment. It had not struck him to pity her before. 
In the large hall among the many strangers, the 
feminine figure had its pathos. She was not of the 
masculine type ; her character was in her soft white, 
caressing hand. She was made to be protected and 
loved, and she had contrived to miss love, in spite of 
her necessity for it. All her life she had been ask- 
ing for bread, it seemed to him, and receiving a 
131 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

stone. She ought to marry again. She was not 
the sort of woman to be happy alone. 

“ Good-bye till to-morrow,” he said, kindly. 
“ Don’t fret. I am sure everything will come right 
in the end.” 

“ How can it ? ” she murmured, plaintively. “ I 
am a lone, lorn, poverty-stricken widow, and no- 
body cares for me.” 

“ It is unkind to say that — to me,” he replied. 

“ Oh, you — you are married ! ” she said, with sud- 
den viciousness. “ Good-night.” 


Chapter XII 

V ERSCHOYLE went away. 

“ She is angry that I have married,” he 
meditated, “ but that means nothing at all. 
The woman is always angry when the man marries. 
I dare say she has had a very good time in India all 
these years. ,, 

When he was returning home with his wife that 
night, she asked him where he had been in the after- 
noon. 

“ I went to the Langham to see Laura Standish,” 
he said. “ I had a note from her this morning, ask- 
ing me to call.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Alice. “ She will see you to- 
morrow.” 

“ She wished for my advice on a matter of busi- 
ness.” 

“ Oh! Is she well off, Anthony? ” 

“ No,” he said. 

He was not communicative, and she was not par- 
ticularly curious. Only for a moment she was con- 
scious of that sensation of well-being appertaining 
to the woman who is satisfied with her lot. She 
133 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

could afford to pity Mrs. Standish, although she did 
not like her. 

She gazed at the stars with quiet eyes, and drew 
her opera-cloak closer round her. Anthony was 
smoking, and the scent of good tobacco reached her 
nostrils, and the tip of his cigar glowed beside her. 
She drew a little nearer to him, to feel his arm 
against her shoulder. A curious thrill ran through 
her. Her body tingled to the finger-tips. Contem- 
plation of the lot of the woman who was lonely, 
brought a revelation. She would miss him so much 
were he to die. If she had never known before that 
she loved him, she knew it now. The man she had 
married for a home, had become her second self, 
and as the full extent of her feeling for him grew 
upon her consciousness, her bosom heaved over her 
throbbing, swelling heart. 

An ecstasy, so keen that it was pain as well as joy, 
filled her being. She had always felt that she was 
capable of a passion which would absorb her whole 
life, but she had never expected to meet the right 
man. That her husband should be that man seemed 
scarcely credible. It was as though destiny had 
willed that the debt owed to her mother’s daughter, 
should be paid at last with interest a thousandfold. 
She had suffered for another’s crime ; the sins of the 
fathers had fallen on her shoulders, so that she had 
but dragged her weary footsteps through the world 
134 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

until her marriage. That in itself had been com- 
pensation enough; in contented materialism she 
had begun to forget her outcast days. This glow- 
ing happiness raised her soul to heaven. 

She stared before her with almost rigid intensity, 
and neither husband nor wife spoke again until they 
reached home. He looked at her in the light, and 
blinked away the lingering shadows from outside. 

“ You look pale,” he said. “ You are not chilly, 
are you ? ” 

“ No,” she said, brusquely. 

He touched her cheek with his hand. 

“ I want to do a little work to-night, my child. 
Go to bed.” 

“ Mayn’t I wait for you ? I am not tired.” 

“ No, I may be a long time.” 

She went to her room alone, and turned up the 
lights over her dressing-table, and looked at herself 
in the glass. 

Tears welled to her eyes. With motionless fea- 
tures she watched them brim over and run down. 
She loved him, and he was hers; but with passion 
had come anxiety. He had not married her for 
love. He was kind, affectionate, considerate al- 
ways ; but did he care as little as before ? 

Fire ran through her veins, and dried the tears 
upon her cheeks. She trembled. The time had 
passed when she could be content with interest, tol- 
135 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

eration. She wanted all, giving him as much. Had 
he remained cool while she had progressed from in- 
difference to gratitude, liking, love! Did he know 
that she cared, and was she still the human docu- 
ment to him, and not a woman to be loved? She 
remembered how he had kissed her, touched her 
sometimes; she was his wife, and he was fond of 
her in a way : it might mean no more than that. 

If he would only tell her that he loved her ! Her 
emotions made her dizzy. A fierce impatience con- 
sumed her. She felt she could not live another mo- 
ment in this suspense. 

She moved to the door to go to him, hesitated on 
the threshold, and returned. What would he think 
of her if she burst upon him with burning words 
which he might not be able to return ? How could 
she say without prelude or encouragement on his 
part : “ I love you ; do you love me ? ” They had 
never talked in that tone to each other; in their 
most intimate moments she had never forgotten 
why he had married her. He might be disturbed if 
she demanded vows and declarations from him now 
which he had never made any pretence of offering 
her. He might be annoyed by exactions he had not 
bargained for. She was his wife, the mistress of 
his house ; he gave her all the deference, sympathy, 
and companionship she had any right to demand. 
136 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She must not worry him, or he might be sorry that 
he had burdened himself with a wife he did not love. 

The girl returned to her dressing-table, and sank 
down on a chair. The old, depressing self-depre- 
ciation had returned. Why should he love her? 
How could she expect him to love her? It was not 
astonishing that she should fall in love with him. 
Her head throbbed. She was a convenience to him, 
nothing more; the artist’s model. 

Her contentment was dead from that moment. It 
was not her way to be demonstrative, and wear her 
heart upon her sleeve. Hers was the nature to con- 
ceal the aching in her breast, to bury it and cherish it 
in a silence of strained nerves and destroying emo- 
tions. While she had only liked him, she had been 
happy; now that she knew she loved him, nothing 
could satisfy her except the words he did not speak. 

She felt changed when she rose the next morning. 
A new epoch had begun. It would never be the 
same between her husband and herself again. Her 
spontaneity had gone; a constraint invaded her 
manner towards him. They had been good friends, 
but friendship could not exist in the bosom of a 
woman who believed that she loved without return. 

The sullen pride which had been her only support 
in the old days was all she had to depend upon now. 
It bade her suppress the least sign of emotion, to 
137 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

steel herself against her own heart. He should not 
know what she felt until he showed some desire to 
know. She would not fling herself unasked at the 
feet of any man. 

While he wrote this morning she brooded apart. 
Yesterday she had sung softly to herself over her 
sewing. The closed door of his study suggested an 
impenetrable barrier to her mind. Once more she 
began to hate the artist in him ; his intellect, his pro- 
fession, which had brought them together, seemed to 
separate them now. The woman panted to be re- 
garded as a woman, not as a tool of his art. 

She flushed. Suppose he found out what was the 
matter with her, and treasured that up to be written 
down too! Had he expected her to get fond of 
him ? Would the truth surprise him very much, or 
was it for the sake of watching the growth of pas- 
sion in her, that he had taken her home ? 

Instinct told her that she had guessed the truth, 
and a hysterical desire to scream beset her. She 
rose, her brow burning, her hands clenched, to pace 
the room and try to smother the volcano which this 
sudden idea had awakened. 

She had resented his insight in the old days. 
Latterly she had yielded to him the only marriage 
portion she had brought; but she could not make 
her new-found love the property of his pen; she 
would not have her passion dissected for his ag- 

138 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

grandizement and written down to stare at her and 
mock her in printed words. She would rather die 
than that he should as much as suspect the truth, if 
he only meant to use it, as he had used the rest of 
her life, to add to the reality of his book. 

When lunch time came she shrank from meeting 
him. It seemed to her that he must read her 
thoughts upon her face; but she forced herself to 
talk, and he was too full of the magazine story he 
was engaged upon, to notice anything amiss with 
her. Afterwards they went out together. To wear 
the mask successfully, she must not change her 
habits ; there must be nothing to make him wonder, 
guess. She had told him several times that she was 
happy, and he must continue to believe it. 

Nevertheless, the self-restraint she was bound to 
exercise had its effect upon her manner. She could 
not be natural, and she had never been a clever 
hypocrite. Unconsciously, she was chilling, repel- 
lent to-day. She was determined to keep her dis- 
tance, and he should keep his. She could no longer 
bear him to tease her as he was wont to do in his 
lighter moods ; the touch of his hand was enough to 
bring her heart to her throat, the blood to her face. 
She could not trust herself to play with the passion 
of her life. 

All day she had had it on her mind that she had 
to dine with “ that woman.” The artifice of society 
139 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

did not come easily to her: the young tigress who 
had glared at the world from her lair, or fought it 
tooth and nail, could not purr like the domestic 
tabby. She was truthful, absurdly sincere, and she 
could not think it necessary or right to become the 
guest of a woman she disliked. 

“ I suppose I must go this time,” she thought an- 
grily, “ but I shall never accept another invitation.” 

Laura did not mention her affairs before Alice, 
although there was no reason on earth why she 
should not have done so beyond a feminine desire 
to possess a secret in common with the man she 
loved. 

He could not say anything on his own initiative, 
so the evening passed with no allusion to business at 
all, until the Verschoyles were going, when she 
whispered to him : 

“ When can I see you again? ” 

“ When you like,” he responded, in duty bound. 

“To-morrow afternoon, as before?” 

“ Very well.” 

“ I can’t bore your wife with my troubles,” she 
added, in a tone of apology. “ She would think me 
a nuisance.” 

Did he notice that she had so contrived that they 
should meet three days in succession, and twice out 
of the three times tete-ct-tete ? He said nothing in 
any case ; his time was fully occupied, as a rule, be- 
140 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

tween his work and the calls of society; but he 
could scarcely refuse to waste a little of it, even if 
he felt the tax, on a woman in trouble, who had no 
one else to look to. He wished, nevertheless, that 
she would not make a secret of the appointment by 
whispering about it. Laura was always fond of 
mysteries, he remembered, with an indulgent smile. 
Really there was no reason why she should not say 
right out before his wife that she wished to talk to 
him to-morrow. 

Alice detected the interlude without comment. 

“ They have secrets, then,” she thought. “ There 
is something I may not know.” 

She frowned. It was not pleasant to be treated 
as an outsider where her husband was concerned. 
Her pity for Laura Standish was lost in a sense of 
offence, and her dislike for the woman who called 
him “ Tony ” increased. She hoped he would tell 
her what the whisper was about, but he said nothing 
on the way home. Evidently it was considered that 
she had no right to know. 

“ You used to see a great deal of Mrs. Standish 
before her marriage, didn’t you? ” she asked him as 
they went up-stairs. 

“ Not before her marriage — afterwards. She 
was brought up by an uncle in Jersey.” 

An expression of arrested attention dawned on 
Alice’s face. 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ After the marriage! Wasn’t she married in 
London, then ? ” 

“ Yes ; but I was abroad at the time. I only re- 
membered her as a child when we met a couple of 
years afterwards.” 

“ I see,” said Alice, thoughtfully. “ Did she love 
her husband ? ” 

“ She may have fancied so once upon a time. 

. . . God knows.” 

“ But she wasn’t happy ? ” she supplemented. 
“ She realized that she had made a mistake? ” 

“ I am afraid so. In some ways, Laura has had 
an unfortunate life. I am sorry for her.” 

Alice drew away from him. Her face had grown 
dark, sullen. There was a stormy light in her eyes. 

“ She told me a lie ! ” she thought. “ She said 
they had been intimate before her marriage, not 
afterwards. She must have had a motive. What 
was it? ” 

Her head was throbbing. All the latent suspi- 
ciousness of her nature was aroused. She hated 
women who told stories ; she never believed in them, 
and she was sure that this one was treacherous and 
false: her blue eyes were always half-closed, like 
a cat’s, and her hair was dyed. 

“ I suppose she married for money, and met a 
man she cared for afterwards,” she concluded. “ He 
almost admitted that it was so. That man was 


142 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Anthony; otherwise why should she trouble to tell 
a lie about such a simple matter? I felt an antipa- 
thy to her directly she came in. I knew she loved 
Anthony. But it doesn’t matter. He has married 
me, not her. If she ever had any influence over 
him, she must have lost it long ago.” 

A keen satisfaction mingled with her hatred of 
the other woman. She was the wife; whoever the 
past might belong to, the present was hers. She 
did not pity Laura. It was in her nature to be as 
jealous as a savage; it put her in a rage even to dis- 
cover that a woman who had once loved him, and 
perhaps loved him still, had re-appeared upon the 
scene. She was still willing to admit, as she had 
been on the first days of her marriage, that she could 
not have been the first. But the shadows of the 
past must remain shadows; they must not mater- 
ialize into women with abundant red hair, and blue 
eyes which smiled and sneered, and soft lips, and 
clinging hands, and obtrude themselves upon the 
present. The existence of Mrs. Standish made the 
subject of experiment begin to ask herself what her 
own position could be; whether a man’s passion 
could continue to be subservient to his intellect; or 
whether the girl he had married for the sake of his 
art would be trampled upon if love came into his 
life again. 

Had he ever loved Laura Standish? 

143 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


Again those brief incidents of the honeymoon 
came back — clues of gossamer. He had certainly 
been thinking of Mrs. Standish then. 

“ But a man may remember a mere friend,” 
thought Alice; “ and, after all, she is his cousin. I 
don’t believe he ever loved her.” 

She disliked Laura Standish so much, in fact, that 
she would not give her the credit of being able to 
attract him. Pride helped to crush jealousy. His 
eyes had passed her by until her history was known 
to him ; why should they have lingered on the other 
woman ? 

“ If there were anything, it was all on one side, 
or he has forgotten,” she decided. “ I hope Mrs. 
Standish will go away soon. She has the soft voice 
of a hypocrite; she tells lies. I do not like her. I 
do not want to think of her any more.” 

She threw her head back with a motion of impa- 
tience, and began to undress at last. She liked the 
look of her long black hair over her shoulders, 
which were very white and no longer too thin. Her 
eyes, both brilliant and tender, flashed under their 
long lashes; she ran her hand over her throat and 
upper arm to feel the soft white flesh. She did not 
utter her thought, or even frame it mentally, but she 
was glad she was as good-looking in her way as 
Laura Standish. 


144 


Chapter XIII 

A LICE suspected that Mrs. Standish had made 
another appointment with her husband, but 
she would not ask. If she asked, he might 
think she was jealous: the woman who is jealous is 
in love. 

So when he said that he was going out “ on busi- 
ness ” in the afternoon, she only smiled bitterly, and 
sat for half-an-hour after he had gone, * with her 
black eyes fixed on vacancy. 

She was trying not to be imaginative; but she 
could not help remembering that the intimacy of her 
husband and this woman dated from a later period 
than she had first been told. She could no longer 
comfort herself with the fact that he might have 
married her if he had chosen. 

Verschoyle meanwhile pursued his way in su- 
preme unconsciousness of his wife’s black mood. 
His intentions respecting Laura were so harmless 
that it did not occur to him that any one could im- 
agine otherwise. Even when Mrs. Standish greeted 
him with a lingering look from her blue eyes, and a 
pressure of the hand, he did not respond save in the 
way of pure friendliness. 

145 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Well, you have made up your mind about the 
cottage ? ” he asked, cheerfully. 

“ Yes/’ she said. “ I am ever so much obliged to 
you, Tony, but I have decided against it. I should 
die, I am sure. I would rather starve peacefully in 
London.” 

He looked grave. 

“ I do not see how you can live in London on two 
pounds a week in decent comfort.” 

“ I don’t propose to perform the impossible,” she 
replied, with a sweet smile. “ I shall spend the 
capital.” 

“ Oh, madness ! ” he exclaimed. “ And when it 
is gone ? ” 

“ It will last a long time if I am economical. I 
shall not remain at the Langham.” 

“ What do you call 4 economical ’ ? ” 

“ If I spent four hundred a year,” she said, defi- 
antly, “ I should be able to hold out for five years. 
Five years is a long time.” 

“ But even five years will come to an end.” 

“ I may marry,” she suggested, with half-veiled 
eyes on his face. 

Anthony sat quiet and thoughtful. 

“ Yes,” he acquiesced, “ it is most probable — if 
you wish to do so.” He smiled. “ After all, I 
believe your bold feminine tactics are the wisest. 
You will do better, no doubt, to remain in touch 
146 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

with people, than to bury yourself in the country. 
Your investment will be more profitable than mine.” 
“ Are you bitter? ” she asked. 

“ Not in the least ! ” 

She smiled also — on the wrong side of her mouth 
— then flushed. 

“ I am alone, I am alone ! ” she said, passionately. 
“ It is all very well for people to sneer at women 
who marry for money, but what is a woman in my 
position to do? I shall hate it, of course, but I 

can't starve. I must have some one to look after 

___ ” 

me. 

“ I think you are quite right.” 

“ I am the most sentimental creature alive, for 
all that. I would rather live on — yes, on two pounds 
a week with the man I cared for, than in a palace 
with another ! ” 

“ An admirable confession, Laura.” 

She began to whimper. 

“ I believe I was born unfortunate. I am never 
to be happy.” 

“ You are likely to be as happy in a second mar- 
riage as you were with Standish,” he said after a 
moment. “ Don’t despair. I am sure you have 
more spirit than you pretend, and will make the best 
of circumstances.” 

“ I used to have spirit,” she said, “ but it’s all 
gone. My God, why do I live ? ” 

147 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She burst into tears. 

Verschoyle felt uncomfortable. The sight of a 
woman crying did not affect him deeply as a rule, 
because it was his opinion that most women could 
cry for nothing, but this particular woman had once 
been the dearest in the world to him. He sympa- 
thized with the pang he would have suffered five 
years ago. 

“ I cannot believe that you wish to die,” he said, 
tamely. “You are young, beautiful; many years 
of happiness lie before you still, I do not doubt.” 

“ It is impossible,” she said, “ that I should ever 
be happy. Fate is against me.” 

“ No— no!” 

“ Why did you marry, Anthony ? ” 

His forehead grew damp. He rose. That she 
should dare enough to ask him that question point- 
blank, told him how much she must care still, how 
great was the disappointment she was unable to 
conceal. 

“ You were tied,” he said, huskily. “ There 
seemed no prospect. You cannot reproach me. I 
was faithful to your memory for five years.” 

“ And then — after vowing to remember me for 
ever — you fell in love with a girl ! ” 

He could have appeased her jealousy had he 
chosen; for a moment, indeed, it was on the tip of 
his tongue to confess that no sentiment such as she 
148 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

supposed had instigated his marriage. But he 
checked the explanation which would not be fair to 
Alice. She, who was his wife, must be considered 
first. 

“ Men make foolish vows at such times,” he said. 
“ I was strongly moved. You must forgive me. I 
hoped — I believed, that you had ceased to think of 
me long ago.” 

She wept without response. 

“ For God’s sake don’t cry! ” he begged. “ You 
make me feel a murderer ! ” 

“ You should have taken me away at the time,” 
she said. “ I knew it was a mistake. I knew that 
if we separated then, it would be forever ! ” 

“ What can I say? ” he asked, helplessly. “ Shall 
I say that if I had known you were going to be free 
so soon, I should have waited? ” 

“ Then you don’t love her! ” she flashed. “ You, 
too, have made a mistake ! ” 

“ I might have felt that I owed it to you to wait, 
that the past had its claims upon me. . . . How 
can one foresee the future? You cannot blame me, 
Laura.” 

“ Blame ! ” she repeated. “ Of course no one is 
to blame. But that does not make me hate your 
wife the less. Women are never logical, you know.” 

He withdrew from her to wander across the room 
and back. 


149 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I should have stayed in India,” she said, drying 
her eyes. “ I was a fool ! I thought I could trust 
myself, and I felt that I must see you again. What 
do you think of me now? Have I lost caste? One 
is not allowed to speak so plainly to a married man, 
is one ? It is only the man who may speak plainly to 
the woman ! ” 

This mingling of pathos, bitterness, and reproach, 
should have been heartrending, but the pained ex- 
pression he forced was no more than a mask for a 
tolerably selfish content. The more he saw of her, 
the more he realized that the magic key, with which 
she had once unlocked the casket of his soul, w r as 
lost. Nothing could have convinced him like this 
abandon on her part, which affected him only as a 
man who is interested in his species is affected by 
sorrow which concerns him not. He was conscious 
all the while that she wept and appealed to him with 
her eyes, that her lashes were darker than they used 
to be, and that she did not forget to wipe them gin- 
gerly, that her charming hair did not owe its lustrous 
hue entirely to nature, and that her attitude of 
despair upon the couch revealed the best lines she 
possessed. A mental calculation limited his respect 
for her. Was this really the only time that she had 
posed and shed tears becomingly to melt the heart 
of man? He could not believe that no rehearsals 
had taken place. She was perfect. Other women’s 
150 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

tears produced a red nose and a contortion of fea- 
tures unpleasing in the extreme. He had only seen 
Alice cry once, and then she had had the tact to 
cover her face. Alice had not practised weeping as 
a fine art. She was always herself, genuine. 

His face softened. 

A touch awakened him from his dream of another 
woman. 

“ Kiss me once,” said Mrs. Standish, impetuously, 
“ and you shall never suspect that I have a heart 
again ! ” 

“ My dear Laura,” he murmured. 

“ Oh, you model married man ! ” she taunted. 
“ Don’t be frightened. Your darling need never 
know.” 

He was extremely annoyed ; she ought to have seen 
that he was not in the mood. 

“ I am not afraid of my wife,” he replied, taking 
refuge in offence. 

“ Are you afraid of me, then ? ” 

“ No ! ” he retorted, stung to brutality. 

She coloured a deep rosy tint which made him 
ashamed of himself, and, to atone, he bent his head 
and kissed her on the cheek. 

She sat rigid under the caress which was so pas- 
sionless. 

“ I hope,” she said, presently, “ that you will put 
this afternoon out of your mind, Anthony. I do 
I5i 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

not want to lose your friendship as well as your 
love.” 

“ You have not lost it.” 

“ Do not tell your wife,” she murmured, “ even to 
please her.” 

“ Good heavens! what do you take me for? ” 

“ Forgive me,” she said. “ I no longer know 
you.” 

He wished with all his heart that he could get 
away. His tact was usually excellent; he had the 
chagrin on this occasion to realize that his retreat 
was clumsy at the least. 

It was the remembrance of his sometime elo- 
quence upon an emotion he had outgrown, which 
froze him into stiff embarrassment. If she recalled 
the details of that buried episode of their love as 
vividly as he did ! 

“ I hope,” he said, “ that we shall begin a new 
era from this date, a new era of friendship. Pray 
command me in any way, my dear Laura. Will you 
move into apartments, or take a little furnished 
flat?” 

“ I haven’t made up my mind yet,” she said, tartly. 
“ I will let you know.” 

“ Then I will wish you good-bye for the present.” 
He extended his hand. “ I should decide upon a 
flat.” 

He felt that he had been a prig, which was an 
152 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

unpleasant reflection. In another way he had 
gained: he walked the pavement a free man. For 
a year — perhaps two years — she had made his life 
a burden of unsatisfied desire ; for three years more 
he had seriously imagined that he loved her. Even 
when he had been startled into admiring Alice, it 
had been with the patronage of a mind set upon a 
vision of the red hair and blue eyes which belonged 
to another man. If Laura had remained in India, 
he would have seen her for ever as he had seen her 
five years ago. Now he was puzzled as to whether it 
were she or himself who had changed. Was it 
possible that he had ever been such a fool? 

On the day after her return he had still admired 
if he had ceased to love her; she was still Laura 
with a halo round her, and he had been surprised at 
his own control. But a graduated decline of senti- 
ment had ended in disgust this afternoon. He found 
her artificial and animal — an unpleasant combina- 
tion ; he would have her sex prudish rather than the 
reverse, and there was no doubt that she had meant 
to lure him further than he chose to go. He could 
no longer understand how he had ever lost his head 
over a woman who had been so ready to forget her 
marriage vows. 

Yes, the last fetter had slipped to the ground, and 
the free man, who had been the slave of a habit, 
turned his eyes to the contemplation of his wife. 

153 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


Her features were more regular than Laura's — 
so were her morals; his maturer taste recognized at 
last that the woman he had married was of far 
higher type, both physically and mentally, than the 
woman who had cost him the great renunciation of 
his life. He could not imagine that Alice, in Laura’s 
place, would have allowed herself to cherish an il- 
licit passion, and given herself away as Laura had 
done to-day. She had more sympathy, less selfish- 
ness, an infinitely higher outlook on life, more culti- 
vation of mind, and better manners. Alice would 
not touch up her hair and eyebrows, and languish 
at a man who did not care for her. 

“ She is a gem,” he said. “ Why have I never 
seen it before ? ” 


Chapter XIV 

O F course he was unjust to the one woman 
in atoning to the other for an over-long 
depreciation. Laura Standish loved him, 
and felt a claim upon him through the past. 

He hurried home to Alice as though he had been 
separated for a length of time from a beloved bride. 
At last, it seemed to him, he was quite sane. He 
was deeply grateful to Laura for coming home; 
otherwise he might have remained under his delu- 
sion, and lost the fairest fruits of life. 

Alice was working quietly in the drawing-room 
when he entered with a flush on his face. 

She greeted him without enthusiasm, guessing 
that he had come from Mrs. Standish, and he laid 
some roses he had brought her in her lap. 

“ Thank you,” she said, soberly. 

Flowers had been his olive branch after their dis- 
cussion about the artist. She could imagine that it 
was again his conscience which gave her these to- 
day. 

He sat down beside her on the couch with an un- 
usual display of affection, and put his arm round her 
waist. 


155 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ What have you been doing this afternoon, little 
woman ? ” 

“ I have been out for a walk. I have only just 
returned. ,, 

He drew her face towards him and kissed her on 
the mouth. 

“ You look a little pale,” he said, tenderly. 
“ Shall we go out of town for a few days ? ” 

Alice coloured, and freed herself from his em- 
brace, rising as though to fetch something from a 
table. 

“ I am very well,” she said, “ there is no occasion 
to be anxious.” 

Verschoyle bit his lip. Had she meant to repulse 
him? He felt as though some one had thrown a jug 
of water in his face. Perhaps the snub had been 
unintentional, thoughtless. It might be that she had 
really required the reel of silk. 

He waited for her to return to her seat with 
pained and perplexed anxiety. She had never re- 
jected his caresses before, not even at the very 
beginning. Had she felt a difference this time and 
resented it? Why should she resent it? It could 
scarcely annoy her to find that a passion for her 
had awakened in his breast. 

She sat down again as far from him as the sofa 
would allow. 

156 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Have you been to see Mrs. Standish this after- 
noon ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes/' he answered, absently, thinking of the 
woman beside him. 

“ I suppose her affairs are not settled yet? ” 

“ In a way they are. She is very unreason- 
able.’ ' 

The red-haired woman who was unreasonable! 
The white walls, the picturesque alleys and steps of 
Capri, came back to Alice’s eyes. She saw again 
the Mediterranean sparkling in the sun. 

“ She seems lonely,” she added. “ It is natural 
that she should want you.” 

“ Yes, it is natural,” he repeated, mechanically. 

He was wondering why the beauty of his wife’s 
face and form had not warmed his dormant passion 
to life before. It was almost incredible that he 
should have been so long in falling in love with her. 
He covered her busy hand with his own suddenly. 

“ Do leave off working, and talk to me ! ” 

She looked surprised, but obeyed. 

“ Then you don’t wish to go out of town ? ” 

“ It is as you like, of course,” she replied indif- 
ferently. 

“ No, it is as you like. I want to give you an 
extra pleasure, if you will tell me how.” 

“ I am quite content.” 


157 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Would you like a new ornament? ” 

“ You have already bought me so many. You 
are so generous.” 

Fair words, all of them, but not the words or the 
tone that a woman uses to a man she loves. 

Gazing at her long and hard, their eyes met; hers 
shifted at once. He sighed, and rose. 

“ I believe we have something on for to-night, 
have we not ? ” 

“ Yes, those concert tickets/' 

“ I get tired of these constant engagements,” he 
said. “ If you could go out alone, I should accept 
none for the next few weeks. The mood is on me 
to work at nights.” 

“ Pray do not consider me,” she said. “ It will 
please me just as well to remain at home.” 

“ At your age a woman requires amusement.” 

“ I am not always amused by ‘ amusements \” 
said Alice, truthfully. 

Verschoyle closed the door. He did not feel like 
working at the moment, and he had nothing else to 
do, but her manner had driven him away from her. 
He went to his study, and dropped wearily into an 
arm-chair. 

“ She does not care for me,” he told himself. 
“ I have failed as I deserved to fail.” 

He had played with fire, and burned himself to 
the heart. That the punishment of her rebuff was 

158 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

just, did not heal the wound which had so suddenly 
begun to bleed. 

“I have been blind,” he said, “ and I thought 
myself a clever man. I did not offer her love 
when I married her. I imagined that I could treat 
her as a toy, and play upon her emotions for my 
enlightenment. It was cruel. She has her re- 
venge. Does she know it ? ” 

The novelist had been first, the man second. He 
no longer wished to watch her, to cause her even a 
moment’s pain by analyzing her symptoms. Pas- 
sions were alive which had been sleeping for five 
years. Once more he found himself absorbed, to 
the exclusion of all else, in a woman, and that 
woman his wife. 

He had offered her the husk of himself in return 
for her soul ; if she had come to him now and said : 
“ Destroy your book, it pains me, and I love you,” 
he would not have hesitated at the sacrifice. He 
was not a hard man, but he had not realized that he 
loved her. 

He leaned his forehead on his hand, and sat long, 
lost in meditation which was for the most part 
gloomy. Her behaviour puzzled him. If she had 
been consistently cold, he could have understood; 
but although she had never shown more than liking 
for him, she had never shrunk from him before. 
This helped him to hope that it might merely be 
159 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

an irritable mood which had distressed him; that 
the sudden distaste she had evinced was no more 
than the passing ill-temper of a young and nervous 
woman. Nobody was always bright; and the equa- 
bility of a placid temperament would have bored him 
to death. 

He would not make up his mind to be miserable 
until he had tried her again, at any rate, and he was 
too much in earnest to be sulky. 

By-and-by he returned to the drawing-room. She 
smiled at him and his heart leaped. 

“ Do you think this leaf ought to be shaded in 
green or brown ? ” she asked, with her friendliest 
air. 

He sat down on the end of the couch close to her, 
in order that he might be able to study the im- 
portant question as it deserved. 

“ I am sure that it asks for green, Alice. ,, 

“ Oh, I hate fancy work ! ” she said, throwing it 
down. “ I believe I began it to punish myself for 
ill-temper.” 

“ Have you been ill-tempered ? ” 

“ Don't you know I have? ” 

She looked shy, charming. 

“ I forgive you," he said, quickly, his face light- 
ening. “I forgive you; only ” He held out 

his hand to her. 

She put hers into it with visible reluctance. He 
160 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

would not see the reluctance. He pulled her to him, 
and kissed her once more. 

This time she did not repulse him; still less did 
she respond. His lips met lips which might have 
been a child's; his burning eyes met eyes which 
merely flinched. He could buoy himself with false 
hopes no longer. Her apparent amiability conveyed 
an indifference more biting than a snub. 

“ She does not care," he thought again. “ Oh, 
my punishment! The man who seeks to play with 
souls is damned ! ” 

He saw that he might embrace her as he chose, 
shower caresses upon her, and that she would yield 
without a murmur, because he was paying for what 
she sold; but that more than he had bargained for 
she would not yield him; the soul he had regarded 
as a plaything was beyond his reach. 

They went to the concert together on good terms. 
He assisted her with her cloak as usual, and handed 
her in and out of the brougham. When they re- 
turned he went to his study. He was unhappy, 
restless, excited — and emotion of any sort is more 
conducive to artistic effort than the apathy of con- 
tent. He felt more like doing solid work to-night 
than he had felt during several weeks in which the 
flesh-pots of Egypt had unconsciously absorbed him. 
He turned to the discarded novel, and lost him- 
self in the creation in his heroine of the passion he 
161 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

had failed to inspire in his wife. If it occurred to 
him that by thus returning to pure imagination he 
was acquiescing in the stultification of his marriage 
from the novelist’s standpoint, he no longer cared. 
He loved her. Their relationship had found its only 
legitimate justification. He would have married 
her again to-morrow, even to torment himself as he 
had begun to do, with unsatisfied yearning for her 
love. 

Verschoyle was suffering from the fatal mistake 
of supposing that he could analyze his wife, whereas 
he only half understood her. The peculiar warp of 
her character was as natural, under the circum- 
stances, as his lack of comprehension. If he had 
kissed her a week ago as he had done this after- 
noon, she would have thrown her arms round his 
neck. The flaming hair of Laura Standish daz- 
zled her; the jealous instincts she had inherited 
robbed her of her sanity. She no longer possessed 
either discrimination or confidence in the husband 
she loved. 

“ He never used to caress me in this way,” she 
remembered. “ He does so now to mask his liaison 
with this woman ! ” 

If she had been a repetition of her mother he 
would have been relieved at once; she would have 
shown the unfounded jealousy he did not suspect, 
he would have reassured her, and the episode would 
162 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

have ended with an embrace. He was deceived by 
the effects of the different circumstances, the dif- 
ferent training the two women had received. The 
mother had been a pampered and spoiled only child ; 
the girl had been taught by adversity to exercise 
self-control. Where the mother would have 
stormed, the daughter froze in silent reserve. Her 
quietness deceived him utterly, because it was so 
different from the potential passion visible in her 
face, from all his preconceived ideas concerning her. 

The next morning Alice saw a letter scented with 
violets and bearing a violet and gold monogram, 
waiting on the breakfast-table for her husband. 
She could imagine that Mrs. Standish would per- 
fume and gild her stationery. 

Verschoyle smiled as he picked up the letter, and 
he did not tear it up after reading it, like the others 
he had received. 

Nothing escaped Alice’s notice. She spoke at 
last. 

“ I think it so vulgar,” she said, “ to scent note- 
paper. Who is writing to you — a female adorer of 
your books ? ” 

“ n — no,” said Anthony, “ not exactly.” 

He began breakfast with an absent expression on 
his face. 

If Alice could have read the note it would 
scarcely have disarmed her. It was pitched in 

163 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Laura’s usual sentimental key, full of phrases of 
suggestive mystery to express what she might have 
expressed outright: 

“ If I were a wise woman,” she wrote, “ I should 
not want to see you again after our last meeting; 
but my heart was always stronger than my head, 
as you know, Tony. Let yesterday cease to exist 
in your memory as in mine. I shall look in to see 
your wife one day this week. — Yours, Laura.” 

Verschoyle did not see much of Alice that day, 
and was not at all demonstrative. When they were 
together he seemed preoccupied, and she made 
wrong deductions, of course; nevertheless she re- 
ceived Mrs. Standish civilly when she called. 

Anthony, without consulting his wife, asked 
Laura to luncheon. Subsequently Mrs. Standish 
expressed a longing to revisit Paris, and Verschoyle 
suggested that she should accompany them thither 
as his guest for two or three days. 

Laura accepted with enthusiasm. 

“ It is so good of you, Tony,” she said. “ It is 
quite a charity to give a little pleasure to a pauper 
like me ! ” 

She was fond of calling herself a pauper, and did 
not care who heard her. There was nothing, she 
knew, which people were more likely to disbelieve 
than such candour, whereas, if she pretended to 
164 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

be well off, some one would ferret out the truth at 
once. 

“ You do not object to Laura accompanying us 
to Paris, do you?” asked Verschoyle afterwards of 
his wife. 

“ Not at all,” she replied; “ but I was not aware 
we were going to Paris.” 

“ I thought it would be a pleasant change,” he 
said wearily. “ I suggested it quite on the spur of 
the moment. Laura was evidently longing to go, 
and, left as she is, I feel that I must do something 
for her.” 

They went to Paris, and the women hated each 
other, and Verschoyle was miserable. But they 
were all very gay, and Laura, who could make 
nothing of him, wondered whether he was a fool or 
deeper than he seemed. 

Then he came home and plunged into work for 
distraction. 

He wrote till the small hours with feverish elo- 
quence. Alice did not love him; this woman of his 
brain loved. He poured fire into her veins from the 
fire in his own, until she breathed and palpitated 
to life. He had never created a stronger character 
or situation. It was real. Ambition woke once 
more. His book should be the best that was in 
him. He would get something out of life. 

Laura took a furnished flat at Kensington; and 

165 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Alice did not ask where her husband went when he 
absented himself, so her active imagination had full 
play. She sat for hours, brooding over a slight, 
fancied or otherwise, or an impertinence on the part 
of Laura. It cost her the greatest effort to receive 
this woman at all; but she would not show that she 
cared. She was haunted by the fear that he would 
discover her secret and put it in his book. He told 
her nothing, but she felt sure he was engaged upon 
the book now, and a passion came upon her to find 
out what he was saying about her. 

One afternoon when she was at home alone she 
went into his study. A middle-aged woman plain, 
unattractive, in the shabby black which was once her 
own livery, occupied her old place of a morning 
now. 

Alice sat down at the table, and opened the 
drawer where he used to keep the manuscript of his 
book. It was there still, grown in bulk since her 
time. She took it out, half fearfully, and began to 
read. 


1 66 


Chapter XV 

T HE study was very quiet. Alice knew that 
she would hear her husband return, so she 
had no fear of being disturbed. She 
would not like him to catch her reading the manu- 
script. It would look as though she cared too much 
what he thought about her, and give him new 
material to utilize. 

He had made good progress since she had ceased 
to be his secretary, and it was the new part, natu- 
rally, which interested her the most. 

After the loss of the lover, who is George Wil- 
son's prototype, the heroine sinks into a state of 
morbid despondency, whence she is rescued by the 
appearance of a new suitor — a man of mark this 
time, a brilliant young physician whose treatise on 
the subject of heredity had brought his name into 
prominence a year or two ago. He speedily be- 
comes the materialization of her ideal, and mar- 
riage follows — a marriage which appears to be a 
perfect union of souls, until the arrival upon the 
scene of the inevitable third person. Audrey Vau- 
167 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

close, one of the most accomplished actresses and at- 
tractive women of her time, takes a fancy to the 
husband and endeavours to alienate him from his 
wife. At first he resists temptation, he avoids the 
woman, he tries to escape from the web her fasci- 
nations are weaving round him. He has no 
strength for the struggle, however. He admits to 
Audrey one day that it was interest in his wife’s 
antecedents which had impelled him to marry her, 
and confesses his guilty love at last, in a passionate 
letter which falls, by some mischance, into his wife’s 
hands. 

It was this point that Verschoyle had reached, 
and the unfinished chapter stopped short at a de- 
scription of the wife’s emotions on discovering the 
contents of this letter. 

Alice laid the manuscript down. If she had been 
pale when she began to read, she looked like death 
now. 

The plot was simple enough; it was no part of 
Verschoyle’s intention to spoil so fine a .subject by 
melodramatic treatment; it would have been even 
commonplace but for the under current of tragedy 
dimly discernible throughout; the continual harping 
upon the string of Destiny, which shapes all things 
human as in a mould whence there is no escape. 
There, at the outset, was the girl of morbid fancies 
and neurotic mind, the daughter of a woman who 
1 68 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

had killed a man for love: a girl of potential pas- 
sions, of wild longing, and emotions tamed by neces- 
sity. There, growing round her, were the circum- 
stances most conducive to the development of that 
jealousy which was her heritage. 

Thus far the story had developed as though of 
itself, so inevitably did cause and effect follow each 
other. It was the work of a fatalist — of one who 
believed with the author of The Human Machine 
that a man is what he must be, and that he has no 
more power to will himself virtuous than healthy or 
wise. 

Alice did not attempt to anticipate the climax. 
Her imagination was entirely absorbed by the situ- 
ation portrayed. The wife, who had long suspected 
her husband’s infidelity, now possessed proof, in his 
own handwriting, of his guilt. He had admitted to 
this woman that his marriage had been contracted 
as an experiment, and that he had never really loved 
till now. The wife was forgotten in the passion of 
his life. 

A wave of heat surged over her slowly, and de- 
parted, leaving her as cold as ice. Anthony had 
begun by describing her. She recognized herself, 
with her faculty of introspection, in every mood. 
He had drawn her to the life — her views, her tone, 
her very phrases; her own flesh and blood stared her 
in the face; the nerves and muscles, heart and soul, 
169 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

of this miserable betrayed woman were her own. If 
so much was photography, why not all? 

She knew now why she had been so desirous of 
reading this book, and why she had asked him no 
questions concerning it, but had concealed her curi- 
osity, even from herself, until it could no longer be 
denied. She saw in it his confessional. As an 
artist, he was always sincere. She closed her eyes 
and heard him tell Laura Standish that he loved her. 

In her life there was no letter; the manuscript did 
as well. He had married her for an experiment, as 
the man in his book had married. No doubt Mrs. 
Standish, the Audrey Vauclose of the novel, knew 
as much by this time as he could tell her. 

“ I am betrayed ! ” she thought, and her eyes 
gleamed and her hands clenched. “ I was right 
to hate that woman from the first ! ” 

The caresses, the display of fondness, she had 
misconstrued, represented a double treachery now. 
He had kissed her with lips which were no longer 
solely hers ; he had soothed her with soft words, the 
man who came straight from her rival’s side. 

“ He thinks me but a girl, who can be cheated 
with impunity,” she told herself. “ And that red- 
haired viper comes here and smiles at me! Oh, I 
know — I know ! ” 

She trembled with rage. The manuscript, which 
170 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

was warp and weft of her flesh, fascinated her like 
a snake. A desire to destroy it animated her — a 
desire to tear page from page, and rend it in frag- 
ments, which she could grind with her teeth and 
trample under foot and scatter beyond recovery. 
She had hated this book almost from the beginning; 
now she feared it as well. It knew too much, this 
live, dead thing — this symbol of her own soul in 
purgatory. 

Her fingers itched to begin the work of destruc- 
tion. She rose, and locked the door. He might 
come, but she would not open till she was ready, 
and he could not force an entrance before it was 
too late. 

There were matches on the table, and a piece of 
taper, with the sealing-wax. It would be safer to 
burn than to tear, but the pleasure would be less. 

She stared at it. * 

The manuscript had cost him many, many hours 
of labour, and it would be with the cry of a parent 
bereaved that he would discover his loss. It was 
not pity, however, which restrained her hand. A 
subtle prudence prevailed, by reminding her that 
with the destruction of his novel she would lose a 
secret source of information. Her violence, too, 
would show him the depth of her wound, and set 
him on his guard. She would outwit herself. It 
171 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

would be wiser to watch the mirror of his duplicity 
until she was able to confront him and this woman 
with irrefutable evidence of their guilt.. 

“ But he does not know that I love him,” she 
reflected, in gloomy triumph. “ The love scenes 
are imaginary, at any rate. He cannot show his 
book to her and say : ‘ She spoke to me so, she kissed 
me so. I held her heart in my hands and made a 
sacrifice of it to you.' ” 

Her lips fell apart; she remained dreaming. His 
word-pictures drew themselves in air for her. She 
saw the doctor and his wife; they had her face and 
Anthony's; the passion ever on the woman’s side, 
mere fondness on the man’s. She clung to him, 
and he caressed her, smiling, and turned away. 

“ So might it have been with us,” she mused, 
“ only my folly was cured in time.” 

There were voices and footsteps in the hall. 

She sprang up, hastily replaced the manuscript, 
and unlocked the door. 

Anthony had brought a friend home to dinner. 
She talked to the man awhile, and went away to 
dress. 

She was finishing when her husband came into 
the room, and lingered beside her. 

“ Do you want anything?” she asked brusquely. 

“ I seem to have seen so little of you to-day,” he 
said. 


172 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

The wistfulness of his voice made her frown. 

“ What a terrible deprivation ! ” 

“ I believe you think I am too sentimental,” he 
said, chagrined. 

“ Oh, not at all ! ‘ Sentimental ’ is by no means 
the word I should apply to you.” 

“ Give it a name, then. Tell me my crime! ” 

He was painfully jocular. 

“ Not yet,” said Alice, with a brilliant flash of 
her dark eyes. “ Some day, perhaps. Do you like 
my new dress ? ” 

“ You look beautiful in everything, my love. The 
effect, indeed, is charming.” 

“ I knew you would be charmed,” she said. “ One 
may always rely upon you to say the right 
thing.” 

Her neck and arms were bare; he bent his head 
and kissed her throat. 

“ My wife!” 

Her bosom heaved under the lace. She would 
have kissed him back in a flush of emotion, but the 
memory of Laura Standish restrained her. The 
sudden colour faded from her cheeks. She fastened 
a brooch in her dress and turned away. 

“ What have you done with your guest, An- 
thony ? ” 

He ground his teeth afterwards. Why was he 
such a fool as to lay himself open to these continual 
173 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

rebuffs? Again he asked himself the old unan- 
swered question: Did she mean to snub him, or 
was her manner merely the carelessness of indiffer- 
ence? He could not make out, also, whether she 
had changed towards him, or whether he was more 
sensitive to her treatment of him than he used to 
be. He never sulked, supposing that she did not 
know she hurt him. The fault, he concluded, was 
in her lack of love for him, and it was useless to 
complain of what she could not help. Neverthe- 
less, over dinner a previous idea recurred to him — 
the idea that she was not quite so happy as she 
used to be. She seemed to find it more difficult to 
laugh, and the animation which she had displayed in 
the first weeks of marriage was not so noticeable. 

He had a letter from Laura by the last post ; Alice 
recognized the handwriting as the butler brought it 
in on a tray. He put it in his pocket without open- 
ing it, and continued his conversation with the 
guest — a piece of indifference which struck her as 
mere ostentation, and aroused her scorn and ire. 

“ I should find it easier to forgive him if he 
opened it eagerly,” she thought. “ I hate hypoc- 
risy!” 

When the guest went, Anthony accompanied him 
out into the hall, and remained there for several 
moments after the door shut. She emerged from 
the drawing-room suddenly to find him reading a 
174 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

letter, and her imagination detected embarrassment 
in his voice. 

“ Are you going to bed already, Alice? ” 

“ No/’ she said, and fetched something from an- 
other room — a book she was reading. 

He followed her back to the drawing-room, and 
lingered as though he wished to talk; but she took 
no notice of him, immersing herself in her book, 
and he shut himself in his study presently. 

As soon as he was gone she put the book down. 

“ He is more careful with his letters than his 
hero,” she said, between her teeth. “ I only see 
the outside of hers. It is the third time this week 
that she has written to him.” 

He had ceased almost entirely to allude to Laura, 
supposing Alice to possess no interest in her what- 
ever. It was her mood, of course, to regard his 
reticence as secrecy — secrecy and guilt — and the 
fever which heated her blood was heightened by its 
suppression. Nobody but herself could know the 
effort it cost her to sit still and feign composure 
before her husband and other people; but again and 
again he had betrayed his impression that she did 
not care for him, and her warped imagination found 
lively cause for congratulation in his ignorance of 
the truth. 

It was a relief, under these circumstances, to be 
175 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

alone. She rose, passing her hand across her brow, 
and began to pace to and fro. Sometimes she re- 
membered to wonder at herself for her indifference 
to the material comforts which had made her happy 
a little while ago. The refinements and luxuries of 
the home she had once envied her employer, no 
longer represented the acme of desire to the woman 
who had become his wife. Her heart was hungry; 
and fine raiment, soft lying, rich living, could not 
feed it as they used to do. 

The contrast between past and present struck her 
to-night, and the thought came to her that she had 
been happier at Mrs. Wilson’s boarding-house than 
she was now. General dissatisfaction had been 
succeeded by an anguish which was devouring her 
like vitriol, corroding the healthy impulses of her 
nature, eating away body and soul. She was so 
possessed by the one idea that she could see nothing 
as it really was. Her prejudiced view distorted all 
her husband said or did, found double meanings in 
his simplest words, and tore herself to pieces in 
jealousy as unfounded as it was possible to be. She 
loved him. No humiliated pride could help her to 
persuade herself that she did not care. She wanted 
him at her feet; she wanted him as much hers as 
though all other women were dead. He should not 
look at any save her; she would have chained his 
eyes, his hands, his very thoughts to hers. It was 
176 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

not in her blood to be reasonable in a matter which 
affected her so deeply; she was not of milk-and- 
water breed. 

Her brain swam when she had been exciting her- 
self a little while. She tried to leave off thinking, 
but could not succeed. She tortured herself by im- 
agining how different everything would be if he 
loved her as she loved him; her brow clouded 
and her breath quickened with memories of Laura 
Standish. By-and-by, because her emotions varied 
with the moments, she stole, from excess of longing, 
to his door. 

She leaned against the wall outside. The serv- 
ants had gone to bed. She fancied she could hear 
the scratching of his pen; once, certainly, she heard 
him sigh. Was he unhappy too? She longed to 
rush in and throw herself at his feet, and beg him 
to forget that she was only his wife, and love her 
as he loved the other woman. 

The creak of a board frightened her away. She 
fled back to the drawing-room like a mouse, her 
heart beating violently, her eyes scared. He did not 
remember how late it was; he was absorbed in the 
book she hated, and did not think of her. 

There was a fresh grievance to nourish hence- 
forward. She told herself that neglect was the nat- 
ural outcome of indifference. She was outside his 
true life. Although she was his wife, she dwelt 
1 77 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

alone while he divided his real self between Laura 
Standish and his book. Her spirit and his had never 
held that communion, without which their legal 
union was not a sacrament, but a curse. 

She pushed her black hair from her brow with 
tremulous hands. 

“ O God ! that I were dead,” she wailed. 

But if she were dead there would be nothing to 
prevent his dwelling in peace with her enemy; and 
she could not bear to think of that. 


178 


Chapter XVI 

M RS. STANDISH’S last note was full of 
woes as usual. The landlord of the 
furnished flat she had taken had failed 
to fulfil his agreement in some trifling particular 
which worried her ; would Anthony “ come 
round ”? 

It was nothing but an excuse to send for him 
of course, and he had never the heart to decline. 
She was aware by this time, he presumed, that he 
did not care for her. If she did not feel humiliated 
by his society, and insisted upon it, he need not 
feel reproached by her regret. 

He found her in a becoming wrapper at four in 
the afternoon. She was not well, she said. A pipe 
leaked through her bedroom ceiling, and she was not 
going to repair other people’s ceilings, or die of 
pneumonia. Anthony suggested that the leakage 
probably concerned the office of the mansions, and 
not her landlord, and promised to interview the 
manager as he went down-stairs. 

“ How practical you are,” she sighed. “ It is 
179 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

such a boon to have a man about. How is your 
wife? ” 

“ Very well — at least, I think so.” 

“ She hasn’t been to see me,” said Laura. 

“ No doubt she will pay you a visit soon.” 

“ Are you really wrapped up in her ? ” she asked. 
“ You are turned into such a reticent, self-contained, 
queer sort of fellow, that one can’t tell.” 

“ I am very fond of her,” he said. “ You may 
believe it.” 

“ As fond as you once were of me? ” 

“ My dear Laura, what a leading question ! ” 

“ I can’t quite make either of you out,” she said. 

“ Pray don’t try,” he implored. 

“ I can’t help it. I am so interested in you. It 
is legitimate to be interested in one’s cousin, is it 
not ? Let us be quite proper ! ” 

He sat silent and annoyed. It was the first time 
that she had openly reverted to the forbidden topic, 
although her manner was always plaintively, af- 
fectedly sentimental when they were alone. 

“ I don’t want to frighten you away again,” she 
said, “ and I didn’t mean to say anything, but it 
slipped out unawares, so I may as well be hanged 
for a sheep as a lamb. That’s vulgar, isn’t it, and 
you are shuddering? I will ask my second ques- 
tion: does she care for you?” 

He remained gazing at her like a basilisk. 

180 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Are you stricken? ” she cried, with sudden pas- 
sion. “Speak — speak! You shall! I swear that 
you shall not leave me till you do. Does she love 
you ? ” 

“ No! ” he said, in a jerk. 

A soft sigh broke from the woman’s lips, and 
she hugged herself, rocking gently in her chair. 

“ I knew it ! ” she said. “ I have seen for some 
time that you were not happy. You love her and 
she does not love you. It is like retribution. Oh, 
you fool, Anthony, to let a girl play with you ! ” 

“ Do you want to make me sorry that I told 
you? ” he asked. 

“ No, but I would have you see your folly.” 

“ A man is as he is made,” he said rather sulkily. 
“ She pleases me.” 

“The old nonsense! You have not outgrown 
that, then ! ” 

“ She pleases me,” he reiterated. 

“ And you let her see it ! ” 

“ Perhaps I do.” 

“ Folly! folly! ” she burst out. “ You had some 
pride once.” 

“ I have a little now; but what is a man to do? ” 

His tone was of despair. 

She moaned, and began to weep, to his horror, 
and relieve herself with incoherent murmurs. 

“ You have trodden on me, humiliated me, and 
181 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

now it's your turn. But I forgive you. I am sorry 
you are unhappy. It does seem hard: it’s hard on 
me.” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t cry,” he said, hoarsely. 

“ I would have made you happy.” 

“ It’s too late to think that.” 

“ I should like to tell her a few things that 
would do her good.” 

“No, no! you mustn’t interfere,” he said. 
“ You can’t help me — nobody can. I must go 
through this alone. But I am grateful for your 
sympathy, Laura ! ” 

“ It isn’t sympathy,” she said, “ it’s — it’s aggra- 
vation at the ‘ cussedness ’ of fate. You deserve 
what you’ve got — yes, you do! You’ve broken 
my heart and your own as well. You are as lonely 
as I am. It’s cheerful, isn’t it? I hope you like it ! ” 

“ We shall get used to it,” he said, gloomily. 
“ Don’t taunt me; one can’t undo what’s done.” 

The door opened. 

“ Mrs. Anthony Verschoyle.” 

Mrs. Standish rose from her tragic pose on the 
couch as Alice entered the room. The two women 
measured each other with a glance; Alice was smil- 
ing. 

“ Oh, are you here, Anthony?” she said. “ I 
thought I might find you.” 

He was in a rage. He had been caught in a 
182 
























« • 






• • - V 









M 





































































A PROPHET of the REAL 

questionable position, which was none of his mak- 
ing, and however little Alice cared for him, she 
would surely demand an explanation. 

Her face had flushed a little, and as he watched 
her his anger left him. Was she stirred? If she 
were only wounded deep enough to feel, he would 
forgive his folly for allowing Laura to make him a 
scene. 

It struck him that he had rarely seen her look so 
well. The colour in her cheeks became her; her 
toilet was perfect; there was a fineness about her 
carriage, in the pose of her head ; her black eyes were 
full of fire. 

Laura was shaken. Usually she was equal to 
any occasion, but for once she could neither com- 
mand her features nor her voice. 

Alice took no notice, however. She sank into a 
chair, and opened the conversation herself. 

“ I should have called before,” she said, “ but I 
thought you would not want any one till you had 
quite settled yourself in your new abode.” 

“ I had so much trouble to find it,” murmured 
Laura, recovering herself. “ House-agents are so 
tiresome. They send one all over London after the 
most impossible places.” 

“ It is a pretty flat,” said Alice. “ I consider 
that you have done very well. Have you taken it 
for a long period ? ” 

183 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Only for six months,” said Mrs. Standish. 
“ One never knows what is going to happen. I have 
the option of renewing for another six. I am sure 
your husband must be glad that I am settled at last. 
He has been so kind, and has taken so much trouble 
to help me. I don’t know what I should have done 
without him.” 

She had recovered her self-control, although she 
was still uneasy. She was not the sort of woman 
who finds it possible to admire a rival, and Alice was 
of a type for which she had no sympathy or com- 
prehension; but she could not believe that anybody 
could be such a fool as to overlook her agitation. 
Poor fellow ! what would he say when his wife took 
him home? She was very worried about it. Alice 
had been blind, apparently, until this moment, but 
if this contretemps had awakened her she would 
take more care of her husband in future. It was 
evident that she did not intend to make a row, how- 
ever, and it was necessary for the hostess to play 
her part as well. 

She ordered tea, and talked about the last new 
play, which she had seen sub rosa, in spite of her 
mourning; and the morose Anthony, lost in admira- 
tion of women’s powers of dissimulation, came out 
of his shell and joined the conversation. 

Alice remained the usual twenty minutes and five 
longer. She rose, Anthony also. 

184 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ So delighted to have seen you both,” simpered 
Laura. “ Anthony is going to worry the estate 
office to attend to a leakage which is spoiling my 
bed-room ceiling. You won’t forget, will you, An- 
thony? I am so sorry to have troubled you over 
such a trifle, but I was always a helpless, imprac- 
tical creature, you know, and you are the only male 
in our small family. I shall certainly have to find 
another husband at once, if it is only to save you 
the worry of looking after me ! ” 

Anthony smiled faintly; he felt that her fluency 
was forced. Alice did not attempt to smile: she 
simply stared at the other woman with her big 
grave eyes. 

“ Come and see me again soon, won’t you? ” said 
Mrs. Standish to Alice. 

“ I shall be very pleased. I suppose you will 
start a ‘ day ’ now ? ” 

“ Yes, I will send you and Tony a card. But I 
am always at home to ‘ the family ’ ! ” 

Anthony had pitied her, softened towards her 
before Alice came in. He hated her now. Did 
she think his wife was a fool? The palpable in- 
sincerity of such gush made him sick. Before him, 
too. Decency might have kept her quiet. If she 
had remained awkward he would have had far more 
respect for her. 

What was Alice going to say? His emotions 

185 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

were mixed as he accompanied her down in the 
lift. If she demanded an explanation of Laura’s 
tears, it would give him an opportunity of assuring 
her that he loved her alone. On the other hand, it 
would force him to give Laura away, which would 
be an unpleasant thing for a gentleman to do, or to 
tell a feeble lie which she would not believe. He 
looked as perplexed meanwhile as though he had 
really something to conceal. 

Alice averted the necessity of a decision. She 
did not allude to the matter. She asked nothing 
at all. 

At first he could not believe that any woman 
could show such a lack of curiosity. He supposed 
she was waiting till they reached home to begin. 
But the rest of the afternoon passed in silence, and 
the whole of the evening. 

He began to think that he must be invisible, she 
treated his conduct with such profound contempt. 
He had never felt of less importance in the scheme 
of creation. 

As she would not speak, he did at last. He was 
bursting to hear her opinion. 

“ Were you surprised,” he asked, “ to find me 
at Laura’s this afternoon ? ” 

“ Oh, not at all,” she said. 

0 She is very excitable,” he added, watching her. 

Indeed!” 

186 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He could make no headway against such a lack 
of interest, and the bitterness it aroused in him 
found expression, when he was alone, in an ex- 
clamation of despair. 

“ She cares no more for me than for a toad. It’s 
hard, my God, it's hard 1 ” 


187 


Chapter XVII 

I T was questionable whether Alice had any plans 
beyond her determination to conceal her jeal- 
ousy and hold her tongue until the proofs of 
her husband’s infidelity were in her hands. 

He should not be able to laugh at her. She 
would not make herself food for humour between 
him and Mrs. Standish. When she spoke at last, 
they should feel something very different from 
amusement. 

As the days passed they drifted even farther 
apart. Anthony was as proud in his way as she 
was in hers, and the sting of her indifference could 
not but have the worst effect upon him. He had 
tried to gain her love by every means in his power, 
and failed. Henceforward he would no longer 
exert himself to please her. He had made as many 
advances as could be expected of any man. 

When he was not in his study — and he worked 
feverishly hard under the sting of pain — he was 
at his club. The husband and wife began to see 
very little of each other. Formerly he had never 
gone out in the evening without her; now he took 
1 88 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

to absenting himself and returning home in the 
small hours. If she had shown the least desire for 
his company, if she had only raised a beckoning 
finger, he would have come back to her, but her 
perverse mind only noted his defalcations without 
comment — storing up grievance upon grievance, 
and attributing his actions in every case to the other 
woman. 

One afternoon she laid a little trap for him in 
order to test his truthfulness, and questioned him 
with a smile when he returned to dinner. 

“ Where have you been all the afternoon, An- 
thony ?” 

“ At the club,” he said. 

She smiled still. 

“ You weren't there at four o'clock! ” 

“ How do you know ? ” he asked in surprise. 

“ I called to take you for a little drive.” 

He flushed with pleasure, and she misconstrued 
the sign of emotion. 

“That was kind of you, dear; I forgot for the 
moment that I had gone round to the Albany to 
see a man.” 

“ What man?” 

“ You don't know him. I am sorry I missed you, 
Alice.” 

“ Never mind,” she said; “ I dare say you had a 
pleasant time.” 


189 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

A couple of weeks ago, when the hot wave was 
still on him, he would have hastened to assure her 
that nothing could give him as much pleasure as 
her society; but she had damped the fire by con- 
tinual application of cold water, and he made no 
reply. 

Later he told her that he had been asked to put 
money into a new daily paper. He could afford the 
risk, and felt inclined to take it for the sake of 
airing his views to a wider public than his books 
were likely to reach. 

Alice forgot herself momentarily, and looked up 
with interest and animation. She had had so many 
ambitions for him once, and her high opinion of his 
intellect survived. 

“ I should accept,” she said; “ I am sure nothing 
you were interested in would fail.” 

“ You flatter me, my dear,” he said, with a short 
laugh; “ I can put my finger on a grand failure or 
two.” 

She did not understand him, but her interest had 
already gone to join the other interests she took 
such trouble to conceal. 

“ I am inclined to go in,” he said, “ if only for 
Laura's sake.” 

“ How can it concern Mrs. Standish ? ” 

" I am really anxious to bring some grist to her 
mill,” he said. “ She won't let me help her, and 
190 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she is spending her capital, which won’t last for 
ever. I thought I might pitchfork her into the 
fashion column ; she knows all about frocks, and she 
always had the knack of writing a smart letter.” 

To an unprejudiced woman his candour would 
have dissipated the least suspicion. Alice only took 
into consideration the fact that he was proposing to 
invest money, probably several thousands, in a news- 
paper, in order to enable Mrs. Standish to earn two 
or three pounds a week. Her blood boiled in pri- 
vate over this revelation of his infamous attachment 
to “ that woman,” and she spent a miserable eve- 
ning at a party, where she had to simper as though 
she were enjoying herself. 

Anthony decided to join the newspaper syndicate, 
and told her so the next morning; but she did not 
flatter herself that her advice had had any weight. 
No doubt, he had spoken to Mrs. Standish about it 
before it was mentioned to her. 

He was away on business most of the day, and 
she felt disinclined to go out. It was fine, but her 
humour was ill-attuned to sunshine. She moped 
indoors, encouraging a nervous headache, too inert 
to move. 

Anthony did not return to dinner, and his ab- 
sence made her wretched, although she always pre- 
tended not to care. It was lonely without him. 
There was nothing to do but think, which was bad 

191 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

for her. She wondered how he was getting on with 
the book. This was a good opportunity for reading 
the manuscript up to date. It was not likely that 
he would be home yet, as he had dined out. 

She went to the study and turned up the lights. 
His writing-table drawers were locked. She had 
never known him to lock them before. 

She sat down in his chair to puzzle that out. 
Whose curiosity did he wish to baulk — hers? It 
could not be that he was trying to keep the progress 
of his book a secret from her, because she would 
read it, with the rest of the world, when it was pub- 
lished. Were there incriminating letters in the 
desk? It was strange that he should begin to lock 
things up. 

A morbid fascination held her to the spot, but 
curiosity would not open the drawers, and if she 
asked Anthony questions he would know that she 
had been prying. 

She flushed presently. It was improbable that 
the locks were particularly good, and she had a 
bunch of keys in her pocket. She snatched them 
out, and tried them one after another till one fitted. 
Then she stopped, and sat with her hands idle in her 
lap, breathing quickly. What would he think of 
her? That did not matter; he would not know. 
What would she think of herself afterwards? A 
feeling of shame crept over her even now, which 
192 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

curiosity fought with the usual arguments. She 
was his wife; he ought to have no secrets from her. 

She turned the key in the lock. 

Still she could not bring herself to search the 
drawer for letters; she only took out the manu- 
script, which she had a right to read, surely? It 
would be public property soon. 

Her heart was beating fast. She forgot to won- 
der why the drawers were locked. Her hand 
trembled as she turned over the pages in search 
of the place where she had left off last time. 

Before she had read a dozen paragraphs the old 
sensations returned: the anger which had brought 
such a glow to her cheeks, the fierce resentment. 
His word-painting was so vivid that it stirred her 
even more than her own thoughts; the keenness of 
his insight and imagination exceeded her knowledge 
of herself. She could not have described the passion 
which consumed her half as well as he who did not 
feel it. 

“ That is true, and that,” she told herself. “ Oh, 
how true it is ! ” 

There were even revelations, which she stopped 
a moment to consider, and always to admit; there 
were other moments when her heart leapt with his 
brain at some inevitable conclusion or apt phrase 
whose vitality sent a thrill of pleasure through the 
pain, and in the midst set her dreaming. How a 

193 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

man with such a fund of sympathy and comprehen- 
sion might have filled her life if only he had cared ! 

She read on. 

The unhappy wife, consumed by jealousy, is 
struck by the resemblance between her own fate and 
her mother’s. The inevitable thought has come. 
The mother killed the husband who betrayed her; 
the daughter’s hand clasps a knife. It is her 
mother’s face she seems to see in the glass before 
her; her mother’s eyes, feverish and wild, her 
mother’s bloodless, twitching lips. “ The sins of 
the fathers.” . . . The old, old phrase mingles 

in her ears with the tolling of a prison bell for exe- 
cution. The child of the murderess, bred in the 
shadow of the gallows, feels the irresistible hand of 
destiny upon her, impelling her to crime. She 
knows now why she has been set apart ; why, at the 
happiest moment of her life, a chill has touched her; 
why she has never been able to escape from the 
gloom of her childhood. Her mother’s nature is in 
her, her mother’s flesh and blood. As in a looking- 
glass she sees history repeat itself. It is her fate, 
pre-ordained from birth, to kill the man she loves. 

Alice raised her eyes from the manuscript. She 
was crimson; her eyes, which burned like coals, 
looked sunken; she felt hot, and her breath came 
quickly, and the rushing blood deafened her. 

She gazed before her at the writing on the wall. 
194 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ The sins of the fathers,” she murmured. 

She was paler now than she had formerly been 
red. The ebbing colour left her cheeks ashen, al- 
most livid. She put the manuscript on the table, 
and leaned her elbows on it, and her chin upon her 
hands. What pictures passed before her eyes then, 
what ideas through her head, God only knows; but 
she and the creation of his pen were merged in 
one, and this morbid, maddened thing of fancy, who 
was born of her flesh, laid hands upon her, and 
claimed her soul. 

Amidst the countless emotions- which seethed 
within her, silent, deadly, like a furnace at white- 
heat, was wonder — wonder that he should have 
dared to write as he had done. She was his wife; 
he was the man; the other woman, who stood, mock- 
ing, gibing by, had the red hair and blue eyes she 
hated. Those sly, appealing blue eyes; the white 
hands, too long, thin, with the pointed nails; the un- 
dulating figure. How dared he write it! How 
dared he confess so much, name his punishment, slay 
himself! With what aesthetic humour must he be 
moved as he shrived himself to the world! She 
fancied his mood as it had never been: laughed 
presently as he had never laughed, with the lips 
stretched wide over white teeth, of a snarling dog. 
She seemed to divine his inmost mood: the senti- 
mental dalliance, the graceful regrets, the eternal 
195 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

inquisitiveness which made him fall to for ever 
pulling his soul to pieces as he was pulling hers. 
It was easy to imagine how the temptation to 
write truth had conquered prudence: always the 
artist first. But the end; how would he manage 
the end? 

The girl realized the trend of her thoughts with 
a low cry, and covered her face. 

“ O my God ! what am I thinking about ? ” 

A fit of shuddering seized her. She became 
afraid of the solitude, the silence, the night. This 
woman, who flamed across these pages, terrified her. 
It was as though she saw herself in Hell. She 
would not touch the manuscript again or look at it. 
It was a thing of evil, polluting her mind with 
ideas she dare not harbour. How she wished that 
she had not opened that locked drawer! She no 
longer thought of seeking an illicit correspondence. 
She had found enough to occupy her mind for many 
days. In future she would have a horror of this 
room. 

She left it now, after replacing the manuscript 
and re-locking the drawer, with a leaden weight on 
her chest, a sensation within her as though her 
heart were sinking through her body. Eve was pay- 
ing for her curiosity. She had eaten the forbidden 
fruit, and her punishment had begun. 

“ I should think that he kept it from me pur- 
196 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

posely,” she mused, “ only that he does not know I 
suspect him.” 

She knew how he was going to end the book; the 
inevitable trend of events was clear to her now — 
unless he intended to make the wretched girl con- 
quer the hereditary taint, and rise above the fate 
mapped out for her. She did not believe this, how- 
ever. The morbid tone of the story had gripped 
her, and would not let her go; it coiled about her: 
she suffocated with the love, hatred, anguish, and 
terror of this likeness of herself. 

Perhaps the desire she had felt last time to burn 
the book had been the instinct of self-preservation. 
She knew that it was too late now. The denoue- 
ment had presented itself to her; she might destroy 
the thing, but it would live for ever in her memory. 

She went back to the drawing-room to wait for 
Anthony. It was a still night, oppressive, close ; per- 
haps a storm was brewing. Electricity in the atmos- 
phere always affected her. The girl felt queer. She 
sank down on the couch and rested her head on the 
cushion. Her mother seemed to be speaking to 
her; she went over that painful time as she re- 
membered it — as the child had remembered it — and 
the old hideous impressions mingled with those she 
had acquired to-night. 

“ Anthony, Anthony, if you only loved me,” she 
murmured, brokenly. 


197 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She hugged the cushion for relief, and bit into 
the silk and down. She wanted him. She was 
alone, with thoughts that frightened her; if she 
could have thrown herself into his arms and told 
him how she loved him! 

She had always looked upon him as a good man, 
honourable, kind, affectionate, until Laura Standish 
came along. Surely, if he knew the pain he was 
causing her, he would make some sacrifice to miti- 
gate it ? She felt almost desperate enough to appeal 
to him; perhaps had he been here she would have 
done so, and their misunderstanding would have 
been over. Her ear strained for the sound of his 
return. Half-a-dozen times she strolled out to the 
hall, fancying she heard his latch-key in the lock. 
The servants had gone to bed already, and her sense 
of loneliness increased. She had no pride just now, 
only a great longing which was more than she could 
bear, and the mood to forget her grievance, and 
plead to him for what was her right. If he had 
come in just then, nothing could have prevented her 
from opening her heart to him. But he did not 
come. She waited and waited vainly through the 
small hours even to the dawn. It was five o’clock 
when she went to bed at last. The sunken eyes 
which confronted her from her toilet-glass looked 
deep enough to be the grave of her passion for him ; 
where there had been the divine humility of an al- 
198 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

most divine love, was the burning of an anger un- 
speakable. 

So her mother had waited. She could remember 
a night — one of the few among the recollections of 
her early childhood — when she had been awakened 
by the light of a candle beside her bed, and the 
sound of a woman wildly weeping. 

She did not want to cry herself ; tears would only 
have touched the surface of her trouble. It would 
have given her far more satisfaction to scream, and 
dash her head against the wall, and bite her hands 
till they bled. It was only with the greatest effort 
indeed, that she contrived to conquer herself, and 
undress quietly, and get into bed. 

She had not slept when the maid brought her tea 
at eight o’clock. 


199 


Chapter XVIII 

H ER head was burning when she rose again, 
her eyes were bloodshot; she looked hag- 
gard, almost plain. She could have slept 
now, but if Anthony came home and found her in 
bed, he would guess what a tragedy she had made 
of his absence. 

Her temper had changed long before she rose. 
Once more her lips were locked, and she would have 
died sooner than tell him that her heart was 
breaking. 

When she entered the breakfast-room, and found 
him there quietly reading the newspaper as though 
nothing had happened, she trembled from head to 
foot with anger, and her white face flushed. His 
smiling composure was the deepest stab he could 
inflict — the last insult surely to her anguish of the 
night ! She had suffered, and he smiled. They had 
never been farther apart than at this moment, when 
she hated him even more than she loved him. 

“ Good-morning,” he said. 

If he had kissed her she would have slapped his 
face. Her own was too much of a revelation to bear 


200 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the light. She stood with her back to the window, 
her stiff eyes avoiding his. 

“ Oh, good-morning,” she said, sarcastically. 
“ You have come back! ” 

Her voice made him cease smiling, and stare at 
her averted cheek. 

“ You had my message, Alice? ” 

“ What message? ” 

“ You did not receive a note from me last night? ” 

“ No.” 

“ That is too bad ! ” His tone sounded like 
genuine vexation. “ I sent a note to you by a han- 
som at about twelve o’clock to say that I should not 
be back.” 

“ Indeed. Where were you ? ” 

“ I stayed in Fleet Street. We were talking shop 
all night — half-a-dozen of us ! ” He forgot his 
annoyance, and spoke brightly. “ Our rag is to 
startle London. Poor old Clitheroe, he has the 
hopefulness of eighteen. His excitement leavened 
us all, ’pon my word ! ” 

Alice did not speak. A smile as bitter as the 
greeting she had given him curled her lips. She 
went to the table to pour out the coffee. 

Anthony’s gaze followed her in some perplexity, 
and a little pain. He was trying not to notice her 
utter lack of sympathy, but it hurt sometimes be- 
yond passive endurance. 


201 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He approached her slowly, stood beside her. 

“ You are not annoyed with me, are you, dear? 
The fellows begged me to stay.” 

“ It doesn’t matter.” 

“ I hope you didn’t wait up ? ” 

“ I waited — a little while.” 

“ I’m so sorry. That beast of a cabman ! I wish 
I had his number. I believe you are angry.” 

She did not answer, but remained staring fixedly 
at the table-cloth. The mask had dropped a little. 
He put his hand on her shoulder, with an inarticu- 
late sound. 

“ Alice, speak to me ! My dear girl, you are too 
sensible, surely ? ” 

He bent to kiss her. 

That aroused her. She reared her head, and 
looked him in the eyes with eyes that frightened 
him. 

“ Don’t touch me,” she said, drawing a deep 
breath. “ Don’t dare to kiss me ! I am not a doll, 
to be picked up, played with, dropped. I know 
that you bought me — we both know that — but I 
have some self-respect, and there are things which 
can’t be borne.” 

He was plainly bewildered and offended. 

“ I can’t imagine what you mean,” he said. “ Was 
it a crime to stay out a night on business ? ” 


202 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She wanted to rave at him; a torrent of words 
rushed to her lips, but she choked them back with 
a supreme effort which set every nerve of her 
quivering, and seemed to strain the sinews of her 
heart. 

“ Take no notice of me,” she said, hurriedly, a 
little piteously, pressing her hands together. “ I 
am not very well, Anthony, that is all.” 

He was kind again at once. 

“ You are not well, dear? I am sorry. What 
ails you ? ” 

“ Nothing of importance,” she murmured. “ I 
shall be myself again by-and-by.” 

Her forehead was damp; she licked the moisture 
from her upper lip. 

“ Indeed, it is nothing,” she added. “ I — I — your 
coffee is getting cold, Anthony. Tell me about the 
newspaper.” 

He went back to his chair, not quite satisfied 
yet about her. She had softened, however. That 
outburst of incomprehensible passion had spent it- 
self already, and she spoke subduedly, with a little 
tremulousness which touched him. He wondered 
whether he had left her too much alone. If she had 
given him the least encouragement he would have 
made a fresh advance to her, but her irritability just 
now — it had been more than irritability — had set 
203 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

him thinking. She had spoken as though she hated 
the man who had bribed her to become his wife 
with a motive so different from love. Had it come 
to this between them — that she regretted her bar- 
gain so passionately? She had seemed happy at 
first, but he could no longer flatter himself that she 
was happy. The marriage, it seemed, was a failure 
all round. 

She aroused him from a painful reverie. 

“ Anthony, don’t you believe in free-will ? ” 

He looked at her curiously, and did not answer at 
once. 

“ No, I do not,” he said. “ Why do you ask? ” 

“ It occurred to me. Why don’t you believe in 
it? ” 

“ A man is made. He does not make himself.” 

“ Everything is heredity, then ? ” 

“ Not everything; and you must not misapply that 
much-misunderstood word. You may have a nose 
which is neither your father’s nor your mother’s, 
but a combination of both, perhaps leavened by an 
ancestor you have never seen. You need not re- 
semble either of your parents apparently. The 
blend may result in new convolutions of the brain, 
in old ones defined or strengthened, which make 
you — the child of ordinary people — a genius, an 
idiot, or a murderer, but none the less the slave 
of your birth.” He hesitated after the word “ mur- 
204 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

derer ” had escaped his lips. “ And heredity is 
modified again by climate, environment, circum- 
stances,” he added. “In fact, one knows nothing! 
It is as impossible to determine how the child of 
certain parents will turn out, as it is impossible to 
foreshadow the events of a hundred years hence. 
The fabric Zola built is a magnificent castle of 
cards.” 

“ Nevertheless, you yourself are writing a book 
about heredity,” she said. 

“ You are wrong,” he said, quickly. “ You do 
not understand my motif . I have no faith in hered- 
ity according to the common, shallow acceptance 
of the term; the heredity, that is to say, of direct, 
unmodified transmission of traits, except incident- 
ally. My argument is that of a young girl, rendered 
morbid by awful memories and brooding over a 
disgrace which separates her mentally from her 
kind. Resembling her mother in appearance, she 
feels herself to be more and more her mother’s child, 
as circumstances, similar to those which terminated 
her mother’s career, gradually surround her. Given 
a highly-strung temperament, a vivid imagination, 
and you have all the ingredients of a tragedy.” 

“Your story is to end with a tragedy, then?” 

“ It must,” he smiled. “ There is no help for it ! ” 

“ I wonder you weren’t afraid to marry me,” she 
said. 


205 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“You!” he said, quietly. “Who was talking 
of you? ” 

“ I am the woman in your book; we both know 
that!” 

“ To a certain extent she is you, but only to a 
certain extent. Marriage has killed your potential 
passion instead of developing it as I hoped. The 
scenes with the first man are modelled upon your 
scenes with George Wilson. Those between hus- 
band and wife I have had to invent. You do not 
love me, you are not jealous. I can no longer im- 
agine you animated by your mother's passion.” 

“Can you not?” she said, and smiled. “I am 
sorry to be a disappointment to you ! ” 

“ In some ways, perhaps, I should have written 
more convincingly if I had never known you; but 
I am not sorry that we met.” 

“ How kind of you to say so,” she said. 

He looked at her yearningly; she would not re- 
spond. The love scenes he had written had seemed 
real enough to her. She had seen Mrs. Standish 
in the role. 

“ Although,” he added, “ I should have been 
better pleased if I had not failed in my attempts to 
win your love.” 

“ Yes, I should have been much more help to you, 
of course. It seems a pity. But you are so clever. 
I have no doubt that the book will be very good.” 
206 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He was angry. Her smile, a certain flippancy, 
jarred on his earnestness. He gave her a look 
which silenced her, went out of the room and 
banged the door. 


207 


Chapter XIX 

T HEY were engaged to lunch out, but at the 
last moment Alice declined to go, assert- 
ing that she was not well. He thought she 
was sulky, and was annoyed : if she had missed an 
ordinary engagement it would not have mattered to 
him, but his publisher was to have been their host 
to-day, and Verschoyle was a good man of business. 
It was a fact, however, that she was unwell. There 
was the most natural cause in the world for her 
being out of sorts, nervous, unreasonable. She had 
known her condition for some time, but she locked 
her lips with the jealousy of resentment upon her 
secret, and would not tell him what ailed her; and 
there is one thing which seems to occur to a man 
so slowly. He would have to know some day — un- 
less the end of the book came true. 

She had begun to drop her ordinary occupations, 
her reading, her picture-galleries, her concerts, her 
friends. She no longer cared for anything, and it 
had become too much of a trouble to pretend that 
208 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she did. Even her dress showed signs of neglect. 
Her time was passed in nourishing the baseless 
jealousy which had undermined her life. 

Meanwhile Verschoyle left her more and more to 
herself. The newspaper and the completion of his 
book kept his time fairly full. He sought refuge in 
almost ceaseless work because she would not en- 
courage him to remain with her, but she did not 
know that. She only read what he wrote day by 
day when he was out, pressing the dagger deeper 
and deeper into her breast, and watched Laura's 
scented notes arrive. 

He asked her to invite the woman to dinner, and 
she obeyed, but the insult of Laura’s presence at 
her table inspired her with a fury which racked her 
frame. For once she failed to control herself, and 
her bitterness and sarcasm brought down a cold re- 
proof from Anthony, thus forced to become Laura’s 
partisan before his wife’s face. Afterwards he re- 
proached her with an anger which seemed just to 
him, an outrage to her. 

“ May I remind you,” he said, “ that this lady 
is my relative, and that I will not have any guest in- 
sulted by my wife in my own house? ” 

“ Why should I pretend that I like her, and be- 
lieve the foolish lies she tells for her own aggrand- 
izement?” retorted Alice, passionately. “ She 
would have you think that she is satiated with ad- 
209 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

miration, and that half the men in London are at her 
feet. It is absurd.” 

“ I do not see it,” he said, rendered obstinate by 
her opposition. “ Undoubtedly she is a beautiful 
and attractive woman.” 

“ I know what she is,” replied Alice, white to the 
lips. “ One has only to look at her face ! ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” asked the man, icily. 

“ It is infamous that I should be forced to enter- 
tain her. Next time she walks in I walk out.” 

He gazed at her in the silence of intense anger, 
his nostrils contracted, his pupils reduced to pin- 
points. 

“You will do nothing of the sort! She is the 
only relative I possess, and she will always be wel- 
come here. What is the matter with you to-night? 
It seems to me that you have the devil in you. Your 
temper altogether has been peculiar of late.” 

“ Don’t you like it? ” 

“ No,” he said, “ I don’t like it.” 

She laughed. 

“ What do you propose to do? ” 

“At the present moment I should like to box 
your ears.” 

“ Don’t touch me,” she said, gasping. “ Don’t 
you dare to touch me ! ” 

“ Oh, ‘ dare ’ is a rash word to use,” he said. 


210 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ You are not the only one of us with a temper. Do 
you hate me? Is that what is the matter with you ? ” 

“ Yes/’ she said, with a white light of passion 
on her face. “ I hate you ! now you know ! ” 

He sat quiet for thirty seconds. His self-control 
had returned, and a consciousness of misery with it. 
He could not imagine that she considered herself 
badly treated. He thought, as she intended he 
should think, that the indifference of their early ac- 
quaintance had turned to dislike. 

He leaned his cheek upon his hand. 

“ I am glad to know,” he responded, hoarsely. 
“ It is best to have an understanding. We will 
admit that our marriage was a mistake. I was the 
biggest of fools — the fool who thinks himself clever. 
Well, you are not troubled with too much of my 
society; in future you shall have still less of it. But 
whoever I choose to invite home you will receive 
civilly; and remember, since we are speaking so 
frankly to each other, that I bought a mistress for 
my house. You follow me?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then I hope that no more words on the subject 
will be necessary.” 

He got up and left her. 

He had become brutal from pain. If he had 
been indifferent or guilty his temper would have 


2 II 


* 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

been easier to control. She lacked the clue, realized 
no more than that the inevitable quarrel had come 
at last, saw the skeleton of her tragedy laid bare. 
Her prejudiced judgment overlooked the provoca- 
tion she had given him, and only considered the fact 
that he had insulted her in championship of Laura 
Standish. 

A gust of passion shook her like an ague. The 
blood mounted with a rush from heart to head. The 
silence which had lasted so long had had some re- 
straining effect upon her. Now that the barrier 
had broken down and he had answered her anger 
with an anger as biting and deep, there was nothing 
to help her to resist the storm. 

Such a mingling of hate and love burned within 
her that she did not know which was the greater. 
If she had seen him dead at her feet at this moment 
she would have laughed in exultation over the 
other woman’s loss, than wept at her own, and 
hugged him close to her, and spent her life in 
mourning. 

The last words he had written came back to her. 

“ .... If she had loved him less he might 

have lived; but it was better to lose him once than 
every day, every hour in the day when he forgot 
her, every moment in those hours when he smiled 
at a recollection she did not share. She tried the 
edge of the knife which she always kept by her. It 


212 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

was sharp enough, and her pain was sharper 
still ” 

Alice had never been able to understand her 
mother; now it was so easy to understand. Hideous 
thoughts filled the girl’s mind — thoughts which 
threw her into a sweat, and made her fear to be 
alone. Such ideas would never have entered her 
head by themselves, but circumstances had con- 
spired to put them there: her mother’s example; still 
worse, her husband’s book, which seemed forcing 
her life to an inevitable conclusion. 

A Roman Catholic would have found relief in 
the confessional. She had to overcome the prompt- 
ings of her morbid nature alone, and her task was 
not rendered easier by Anthony’s certainty that 
there was only one end possible, under the circum- 
stances, for her mother’s daughter. She remem- 
bered every line he had written upon the subject. 
Did he know her better than she knew herself? 
Had she as little control over her passions as he 
supposed? Was she really pre-ordained to commit 
a crime which she sickened to think of? Was she 
a woman with a moral sense and a soul, or only a 
piece of flotsam on the stream of life, which might 
be blown this way or that with the current, or 
sucked down ? She had always wanted to be good ; 
she knew well enough at this moment what was 
right and wrong, and it was as inconceivable to her, 
213 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

as to any other girl, that she should ever be guilty of 
such an act of violence. But there was the presenti- 
ment of her mother ever before her eyes. Her 
mother had been equally innocent once, and yet her 
mother — her own mother — had become a murder- 
ess. And Anthony had taken the daughter as the 
heroine of his book, so convinced was he that if love 
and jealousy came into her life, she would follow in 
her mother’s footsteps. 

Her anger against him was forgotten in self- 
analysis. Were such germs of evil really latent 
within her? Would they grow strong enough to 
slay her body and her soul? Her dilated, terrified 
eyes wandered round her in a wild search for reas- 
surance. It might be that she did not know herself, 
and that she was capable of killing him. If she 
were good why did such horrible thoughts enter 
her head so readily ? The unspeakable thing which 
distracted her would not even occur to the normal 
woman. It must be true that she was morbid, un- 
natural, doomed from birth. 

A wave of sickly faintness overcame her. She 
started unsteadily to her feet, to run — where? She 
hungered for some one to assure her that her fear of 
herself was unfounded, and that she was no more 
likely to be tempted of the devil than her fellows. 
The fever which beset her could have been cured by 
a sensible man who knew how to talk to her, or by 
214 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

a kind woman. She had no intimate friends, how- 
ever; the whole force of her nature had been cen- 
tered jealously in her husband; she had not even 
had a little affection to give away. There were one 
or two married women of her acquaintance, it is 
true, in whom she might find it possible to confide — 
one, in particular, the wife of Mr. Saunderson, the 
painter, to whom she had given the sittings he had 
begged of her. Mrs. Saunderson had once told 
Alice how deeply she regretted having no daughters 
of her own, and had kissed the girl affectionately at 
parting, as though she liked her. 

“ What would she think of me if I told her what 
I felt ? ” wondered Alice. “ I must — I must tell 
some one.” 

She almost decided to call on the artist’s wife to- 
morrow, then hesitated, and shrank. She would 
have to confess that she loved her husband, who did 
not love her; that she was despised and jealous of 
another woman: to explain, too, about the book, 
and how her marriage had come about. Could she 
bear such a humiliation ? Could she, who had never 
confided wholly in any human soul, carry such a 
story to a stranger’s ears? Half the truth would 
not do; unless she drew her position fully, clearly, 
it would be useless to seek a confidante at all. 

She shrank more and more from such an expedi- 
ent. What, after all, could this woman or any other 

215 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

do to help her? Probably Mrs. Saunderson would 
be shocked, or fancy that she was hysterical and 
smile, and pat her hand as though she were a baby, 
telling her to go out and amuse herself and be a 
good girl. To be treated lightly would madden 
her; yet how could she make any one who did not 
know her well believe how terribly unnerved and 
miserable she felt, and how this shadow of her 
mother’s fate brooded over her like a black bird 
of prey with its talons in her heart ? 

Instead of going to see Mrs. Saunderson, she 
went for a walk in the Park. 

Somehow she felt reminded of her old days of 
struggle and servitude. The sense of isolation was 
the same, the restlessness of a craving soul, which 
hungered and hungered for the food withheld. Then 
she had been shabby. Now she was clad expen- 
sively and there was money in her purse. But those 
things were only as the husk; the kernel of her dis- 
content, though accentuated a thousandfold, was 
the same. 

“Why did he marry me?” she asked herself. 
“ Why didn’t he let me be? I began with nothing, 
he with everything, and he has made almost as great 
a failure of his life as I have made of mine.” 

She felt sorry for him in a sudden wave of sym- 
pathy for the disappointment with which she imag- 
ined him to be consumed. Of course, he had not 
216 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

expected Mr. Standish to die when he married her. 
He had been unlucky too. 

She knew this new mood would not last. She 
was too sorely wounded to condone his fancied 
offence; a touch, a word, a look from him would 
be as a spark to tinder, firing her afresh. Even her 
own thoughts, when she returned to the roof they 
shared, the feeling of him near to her, would be 
enough to set her heart beating again, and the 
blood running through her veins like liquid fire. 
She was not made to take things quietly, to play 
at saintliness, and accept what she could not alter 
with silent tears. A tigress had suckled her, and 
even the semblance of submission would mean to 
her a continual striving which would tear her to 
shreds. 

There was water close to her feet, and silence 
round about. She had left the more frequented 
paths, and found herself beside the Serpentine in 
solitude. It took a moment, nevertheless, for the 
idea of suicide to enter her head, and then she dis- 
missed that solution of her trouble without effort. 
The precedent was lacking, and her initiative in 
these matters, it seemed, was poor. 

It was time to go home, and she turned away. 
In one of those flashes of illumination which we 
are all conscious of, she became the spectator of her 
own drama, and realized that to many women of 
217 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the world her position would seem not so great a 
tragedy. She had a refined and luxurious home, as 
much money as she needed, a place in the best so- 
ciety — the society of culture and of art, a husband 
who gave her sufficient deference and respect when 
she did not cross his will. Why should she care so 
much? It was foolish. If she could regard him 
with the amiable indifference of the early days of 
their marriage, she might be happy again, content 
like a cat, unquestioning. She made troubles in- 
stead of amusing herself, and letting him have his 
way unchecked. She had lived without him for- 
merly, and would have been glad enough to accept a 
home without the man. This morning had begun a 
new era. It was evident that he meant to stick to his 
word and leave her utterly to herself. They were 
to be polite to each other, and she was to obey him 
in return for the material benefits he conferred 
upon her; otherwise their marriage was to lapse into 
a name. Why could she not think that it was better 
so? If only she could forget that she had learnt to 
care for him and let him go ! 

Needless to say she did not formulate all this in 
her mind. She felt it in that moment of intuition, 
and in another moment the night shut down again. 
She could not be what she was not. She was bound 
to take him seriously; for good or ill he was her 
fate. 


218 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

Reaching home, tired out, she thought she had 
lost her fit of nerves in physical fatigue. Anthony 
was in. Through the shut door of his study she 
could hear the click of the typewriter. He rarely 
worked it himself; he must be very busy. Perhaps 
he was eager to finish the book, which only required 
a few pages more. 

It was tea-time. She sent word to him, and 
waited uneasily. She dreaded, yet longed to see 
him. There would be an awkwardness in the first 
meeting after their quarrel. Perhaps he would not 
come. 

The opening of the door flushed her. Weights 
on her eyelids kept them down. He spoke first, 
ignoring what had happened. 

“ Mrs. Saunderson was here while you were out. 
She called to ask if you would dine with her this 
evening. She will be alone.” 

“ And you ? ” she hesitated. 

“ I have an engagement. You need not consider 
me. 

His voice was toneless, hard; his eyes dull. He 
did not look at her; but drank his tea in quick gulps, 
and went back to work. 

Alice clasped her hands in her lap, and stared 
vacantly before her. 

It was curious that Mrs. Saunderson should call 
just as she was thinking of her; it seemed like more 
219 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

than a coincidence. The impulse to confide returned; 
once more a longing seized her to tell somebody 
older than herself what terrible thoughts beset her, 
and ask for advice and encouragement. 

She rose and knocked at Anthony’s door. 

“ Come in,” he called. When he saw that it 
was his wife, he frowned. “ Why did you knock? ” 
he asked, with the sharpness of uncontrollable im- 
patience. “ Isn’t that sort of thing unnecessary, 
and a little absurd ? ” 

“ I thought you might not wish to be disturbed.” 

“ Don’t be affected, Alice, for God’s sake ! I 
have no secrets. There is nothing here that you 
may not see.” 

“ Indeed,” she said, “ then why have you taken 
to locking your writing-table drawers ? ” 

“ How did you know ? ” 

She blushed, and stammered. 

“ I — I came to find a nib the other day when 
you were out.” 

“ Miss Ball is too officious,” he explained, coldly. 
“ She is always tidying my papers, and I prefer them 
left alone.” 

“ I wonder you did not find it simpler to tell her 
so.” 

He shrugged his shoulders, dismissing her remark 
and her together as though they were equally worth- 
220 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

less, and took up his pen again. He thought she 
was carping at nothing; she thought he was a brute. 
“What do you want, Alice ?” 

“ Does Mrs. Saunderson expect a message? ” 

“ No. You can go or not, as you like.” 

“Thank you.” 

He was writing again before she had left the 
room, quite indifferent, apparently, to whether she 
went or stayed. 

She was so incensed at such treatment from him, 
that it sent her out of the room with white lips and 
tear-filled eyes. Her stoicism had not lasted long. 
After all she preferred the “ hypocrisy ” from him 
of kindliness and consideration and a little show of 
love. 


221 


Chapter XX 


M RS. SAUNDERSON received her with a 
warm welcome. 

“ It was good of you to come,” she 
said. “ My husband has gone to some tiresome city 
function, and I haven’t had a chat with you for ever 
so long.” 

“ It was very kind of you to ask me,” said Alice. 
“ I was sorry to be out when you called. How is 
your husband? ” 

“ Very well, thank you. And you ? ” The artist’s 
wife — a pretty woman of forty, a little faded, very 
attractive still — looked curiously at the girl. “ I am 
not sure that you are as blooming as you were last 
time we met?” 

“ Indeed, I am quite well,” said Alice, averting 
her eyes. 

“ Really? ” 

“ Yes. What do you mean? ” 

“ Oh, nothing, my dear ! ” said Mrs. Saunderson, 
laughing softly. “ I am the most discreet person in 
the world. I never ask questions.” 

The two women dined cosily alone. Nothing 


222 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

could have been more favourable for a confidential 
talk, if Alice wished to open her heart to her hostess, 
and there was no one whom she should find it easier 
to tell. The Saundersons were old friends of her 
husband's; Mr. Saunderson admired her, his wife 
liked her, and from the first they had treated her 
with the greatest friendliness possible. 

In a pause, Alice found her eyes scrutinizing the 
other woman’s face. Most girls of her age pour out 
every secret they possess in the first attentive ear. 
Why did she find it so difficult? Why was she not 
like other girls? She longed for advice and sym- 
pathy, yet shrank from speaking of her trouble ; and 
so see-sawed all through dinner. 

When they adjourned to the drawing-room Mrs. 
Saunderson mentioned the new daily paper with 
which Anthony’s name was associated, and con- 
gratulated her on its succcess. Afterwards she dis- 
cussed his last book, and said enough kind things of 
him to win a young wife’s heart ; but Alice sat frozen 
through this praise of her beloved. It was as though 
a wanderer, dying of thirst in the desert, had been 
offered a handful of sweets. 

Probably Mrs. Saunderson, who concluded, like 
the rest of the world, that Anthony Verschoyle had 
made a love-match, could not understand why Alice 
remained silent, with dim eyes and troubled brow. 
At first she thought that it was emotion which kept 
223 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

her mum, then some vague idea that the girl was un- 
happy must have crossed the woman's mind, for she 
leaned forward, as they sat on the couch together, 
in the beautiful lamp-lit room, and laid a hand upon 
her wrist. 

“Haven’t you everything in the world?” she 
asked, softly. “ You seem to me the most enviable 
woman I ever met.” 

The colour mounted to Alice’s clear white skin. 

“ You don’t know ! ” she said, suffocating. 

“ What, dear ? ” 

The woman’s face was sympathetic, her voice 
kind. Alice struggled with her painful reserve. 
Now or never was her opportunity. She wanted so 
much to speak, but her tongue was chained. It was 
not her nature to confide in any one. Deterring 
thoughts would rise. She could hear the Saunder- 
sons discussing her afterwards, wondering at the 
folly of Anthony’s marriage, pitying him, perhaps, 
even more than her, for a little good-natured scorn 
would be mingled with their compassion for the 
girl who had sold herself for a home, to live dis- 
dained of the man who had bought her: they had 
been his friends before they were hers. 

An infinite pathos dawned in her eyes; she was 
like a dumb thing striving to speak. 

“ I had a melancholy childhood,” she said at last. 
“ It has left a shadow over my life.” 

224 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ But you have married such a charming fellow 
that the present should more than atone for every- 
thing. You mustn’t brood. You ought to go out 
a lot, and drag Anthony with you, and enjoy your- 
self while you are young.” 

“ He is always so busy,” murmured Alice. 

“ You mustn’t let him work too hard. I had a lot 
of trouble with my husband when we were first mar- 
ried ; he was so anxious to get on that he would have 
worked himself to death if I hadn’t insisted. I be- 
lieve our first quarrel was over that subject,” added 
Mrs. Saunderson, complacently, “ but I won. He 
thanks me now that he has reached a sober, sensible, 
and healthy middle age.” 

She did not understand — how should she? — and 
Alice let the moment pass. Her reserve had suffered 
such pangs of alarm that her first absurd sensation 
was relief that Mrs. Saunderson had not pressed 
the point. It was only on her way home that she 
began to feel sorry that she had not been braver. She 
was hopeless, now, and forthwith gave up any idea 
of being able to relieve her mind of its burden ; and 
a renewal of yesterday’s terror came upon her as she 
drove through the night streets, till her forehead and 
clenched hands grew wet, and her heart beat as 
though it were going to burst. 

She was so lonely. How could she bear to go on 
living under the same roof with him, seeing him 
225 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

every day, speaking to him, while he treated her as 
a piece of furniture? He neither knew nor cared, 
it seemed, what she was thinking about, and whether 
she were happy or miserable, ill or well. His true 
home, as she conceived it, was where the other wo- 
man dwelt; his heart was there, his confidence; in 
spirit he was less hers than he had ever been. She 
could give herself the pains of Hell at any moment in 
picturing their tete-a-tetes. She could see him kiss 
the red lips of that woman, and watch her languish- 
ing eyes, and his caressing hand. 

Anthony was still out when she returned. She 
did not see him. All night her mother’s image 
haunted her, waking, and sleeping in feverish 
dreams. Once she started up in bed crying out, real- 
ized the darkness with a sob of relief, and sank back 
upon her pillow, trembling, shuddering. What 
things she had seen ! She wiped her hand upon the 
sheet, fancying it blood-stained still. 


226 


Chapter XXI 

I T dawned upon her suddenly that she ought to 
leave him. The conception rewarded her in 
its first moments with a sickly throbbing of the 
heart. Afterwards she believed that God had spoken 
to her. There was safety in flight, and a certain re- 
lief above all safety. She could not be the victim of 
a moment’s madness if they were separated. He 
would not be able to goad her to frenzy thrice a 
day. She would be alone with a pain which might 
devour her body but never harm him or her own 
soul. Certainly it was a message. A fervid re- 
ligious glow caused her a momentary exaltation. 
Religion had never meant much to her before, but 
she was in a mood to grasp at any help, and her 
eyes shone with the dim inward light of one who 
sees visions. Her mother’s image no longer haunted 
her ; she saw Calvary, and the instinct of flight quick- 
ened in every nerve of her body — flight from the 
man who had inspired her with a passion which 
would drive her to crime. 

She tried to plan her departure reasonably, but 
her brain was not under control, and her thoughts 
227 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

always wandered back to Anthony and Laura Stand- 
ish. 

How she would live after her money was ex- 
hausted she did not contemplate. Her sole idea 
was to leave him undiscovered without any scene to 
arouse the evil in her nature which she was striving 
to defeat. 

She watched him curiously at breakfast the morn- 
ing after her resolution was taken. 

“ If he knew, what would he do ? ” she wondered. 
“ Would he try to stop me? Would he pretend to 
care or not? ” 

His ill-temper with her was over, and he spoke 
to her as usual. Her voice sounded unnatural in 
her own ears, and it seemed to her that if he had 
had the least feeling for her, he would have guessed 
what a crisis was at hand. But he ate without 
realizing that anything special was the matter, and 
she sipped her coffee, and said farewell to him fur- 
tively with her eyes. 

“ I am going out this morning,” he said, as he 
rose. “ I shall be home to lunch.” 

“ Yes,” she responded, knowing that she would 
be gone when he returned. 

Perhaps he noticed just then that she looked a 
little pale and weary, for he came up and smiled 
at her with a tenderness which had grown rare with 
him. 


22 8 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ Is there anything I can do for you in the City ? ” 

“ No, thank you.” 

“ What do you mean to do with yourself this 
morning? ” 

“ I am going out too,” she said, truthfully. 

“ Good-bye, then.” 

“ Good-bye.” 

She followed him to the door with a certain dog- 
like wistfulness at being left. At this moment she 
only loved him, and longed for a kiss. But he was 
no longer demonstrative; she had discouraged him 
too fiercely in her mistaken pride. The door shut 
behind him, and she was alone. 

There was nothing to hinder her preparations 
now, and she dare not linger, fearful of her own 
resolve. She fancied that she had become so weak 
and ungovernable that she could not trust herself 
in any respect. She packed feverishly, with the 
help of the housemaid, who was surprised. When 
everything was ready and a cab ordered, she went 
into her husband’s study. It was here that she had 
met him first; it was here that they had come to- 
gether ; it was here that she had read the manuscript 
which had given her such fearful half-hours. To 
recall what he had written gave her strength for 
the final wrench. She looked long about her, as she 
finished buttoning her gloves, then left a note she had 
prepared upon the table. 


229 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ The luggage has gone down, ma'am,” said the 
servant, at the door. 

Alice drew a quick breath, and followed. She 
would not take time to think any more about 
what she was doing. Any farewell is a wrench, 
but afterwards she knew that she would be glad 
again. 

She did not direct the cabman until they had left 
the mansions. She drove to Paddington, and took a 
ticket for a little place in Cornwall, where she had 
once stayed for a few days as a child. Her object 
was to get as far as possible from London. It was 
a day’s journey. The distance would protect her 
from any impulse which might arise to return to 
him, by giving her a long time for reflection on the 
way. 

She sat in the train self-absorbed, blank-eyed, 
desolate. There was a monotonous aching in her 
breast, which made it a relief to sigh. She felt ill 
presently; her head swam, and her limbs trembled. 
She grew hot, fearing to faint alone there in the 
train, which was bearing her onward to an unknown 
future. 

When she remembered that she had eaten nothing 
since yesterday, she thought that it might be hunger 
which ailed her, and, at a wayside station, managed 
to procure a cup of tea and a bun. It was feeble 
sustenance, but the spirit which had dragged her 
230 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

away from him and all she knew, bore her up to her 
journey’s end. 

She left her luggage at the railway station while 
she went to look for a lodging. The sun had set, 
and the shadows of evening were already creeping 
along the narrow cobbled ways of the old grey fish- 
ing town. She steered for the church-tower which 
raised a weather-beaten head above the clustering 
roofs on the fringe of the sea. Quaint outer stair- 
ways met her eyes; strange corners redolent of fish 
and tar; great barrels waiting for the pilchards of 
autumn in gloomy entrance floors; endless coils of 
rope; chickens and children; women knitting in the 
twilight as they gossiped with a neighbour in their 
soft West-country tongue. 

There was a tingling in the air, an atmosphere of 
champagne after the vitiated air of town ; but Alice 
was not capable of appreciating anything just then. 
She had a dim impression of beauty in the quaint 
gables and roofs and stairways, and the fleet of lug- 
gers bobbing at anchor in the harbour ; that was all. 
She was only anxious to find shelter ; to escape from 
the eyes turned curiously upon the stranger, and 
rest. 

The lighted window of a confectioner’s attracted 
her attention, and she went in and asked the pro- 
prietor if he could tell her where she could find com- 
fortable apartments. 


231 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ There's Rock Villa, ma'am," he said. “ Have 
you tried there ? " 

“ I haven't tried anywhere," responded Alice. 
“ Is Rock Villa difficult to find? " 

The man spoke to his wife, and addressed Alice 
again. 

“ It's a bit hard to direct you to it as you’re a 
stranger here, ma'am. I'll be pleased to show you 
the way if you like." 

“ Oh, I can’t think of troubling you," said Alice, 
faintly. 

“ Sur' it’s no trouble for him, ma’am," said the 
wife, a buxom, good-natured woman, coming for- 
ward. “ You’ll never find it alone, and it’s getting 
dark, and I’m sure you are tired and want a rest 
and a cup of tea. You’ll like Mrs. Permewan ; she’ll 
make you comfortable. She’s used to having young 
artist folk at her house, and she knows what the 
gentry like." 

“ Thank you so much," said Alice. “ I am sure 
I shall be comfortable." 

The cottage stood alone on the edge of the sea so 
close that in stormy weather the great Atlantic 
breakers sprinkled the shingle roof with foam. The 
interior was a nest of little old-fashioned rooms and 
unexpected stairs and windows. But everything was 
clean though simple, and there was a sitting-room 
232 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

with chintz-covered furniture, and a wide window to 
the sea. 

Alice thanked her guide for his trouble, and en- 
gaged the rooms, and the landlady called her son, a 
strapping lad in jersey and sea boots, to fetch Mrs. 
Verschoyle’s luggage. 

Then Alice, having found a refuge, broke down. 
She had done too much for her state of health. The 
anguish she had suffered during the last few weeks 
had its revenge now that the strain was relaxed. 
The landlady, a good soul, sent for a doctor in haste. 


233 


Chapter XXII 

ii X KNOW all, and thought it best to leave you. 

I The relief, no doubt, will be as much yours 
as mine. — A lice.” 

The note, which Anthony had found on his writ- 
ing-table, had caused him even more perplexity than 
anger. When he heard from the servants that she 
had really gone, taking her luggage with her, and 
leaving no address, he shut himself up in his study, 
white-faced and tense. 

Rage at this moment conquered every emotion 
except astonishment. She had dared to treat him so. 
He who had done so much for her, and cared so 
much, striven so much, to be rewarded by — was it 
disgust? Her avowal of hatred had wounded him 
that day, and the wound was for ever bleeding ; still 
he had been unable to conceive why he should in- 
spire the woman who had married him of her own 
free will, with such intemperate repulsion. The 
phrase, too, with which her note began, surprised 
him : “ I know all . . . ” What did she 
know ? What was there to know ? And the latter 


234 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

sentence seemed to assert that it was his indifference 
which had driven her away, to imply a reproach 
which he did not merit. 

“If either of us deserves that, it is she,” he 
thought; “yet her note reads more like bitterness 
than indifference, and her act is certainly resent- 
ment.” 

He sighed deeply. 

“ My God, how difficult it is to understand her ! 
What is she resenting, if it is not merely dislike of 
me which has driven her away ? Why could she not 
discuss her desire for a separation quietly, instead 
of leaving in this way? Her conduct is folly, and 
cruelty too. What is one to do with a woman in 
this mood? Does she expect me to let her go with- 
out more words? Do I mean to let her go? ” 

He leaned his forehead on his hand. His hair was 
wet, his palms too. Anger was giving place to for- 
lornness and misery. He sighed again, contemplat- 
ing the note which lay before him still. 

“ I know all, and thought it best to leave you. 
The relief, no doubt, will be as much yours as mine.” 

“ One would think,” he mused, “ that I had hurt 
her. But how — how ? — when ? Has she ever seemed 
to feel? I have held my hand upon her pulse all 
the months of our marriage and detected no extra 
beat for me. What is my offence beyond being the 
man who wooed her without love ? She forgave me 
235 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

then ; she spoke clearly of a bargain with calm voice 
and contented eyes. Whence does her anger come ? ” 

He scented a mystery. The passion which had 
deadened his intelligence was over already. He could 
not fail to perceive that she fancied herself injured 
in some way; that her scorn of him was based on a 
grievance, although what that grievance could be 
he was as far as ever from discerning. One thing 
was clear to his common-sense : he could not allow 
her to sever the tie between them so casually. It was 
his right to demand an explanation and to come to 
a clear agreement concerning her future and his 
own. 

Dwelling upon her conduct, anger dominated pain 
once more. She had treated him badly. He had 
more than fulfilled his contract ; she had broken hers. 
Whatever fancied wrong had set her against him 
so violently, he would not admit that she had any 
right to leave his roof without accusation or apology, 
to humiliate him before his servants and his friends, 
to degrade him in his own eyes. Had he not con- 
ceded enough to her whims and moods and inex- 
plicable reserve? 

He remembered Laura. She would laugh, and if 
her mockery had made him smart before, it would 
make him burn this time. Tt, was the thought of 
how he had cared for his wife which stung him 
most of all ; the bitter, humiliating consciousness of 
236 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

failure. He had offered her the best love of his life, 
and she had only cared enough to find deep cause of 
offence in some trifle which did not occur to him. 
He diminished in his own eyes, and was nigh coming 
to the conclusion that he neither desired an explana- 
tion of her, nor would trouble himself about her 
welfare. 

Nevertheless, on the morrow — a fevered, troubled 
night of restlessness had intervened — his curiosity 
was alive once more. He must know what that ab- 
surd note of hers meant. If she was preposterous, 
it was no reason why he should not act like a man 
of common-sense. It was necessary to find her. She 
could not intend seriously to disappear from his 
sight. A letter would come by-and-by with an ad- 
dress, an excuse perhaps; at any rate a clue to her 
folly. 

He waited a day or two, in vain. His restlessness 
increased. He would not own to himself that he 
held his breath every time the postman came; still 
he went on expecting; he could not believe that she 
would treat him so insolently. After all they had 
been much to each other; she was his wife; could 
any woman show such a cold-blooded disregard for 
that? 

“ And I was good to her ; I was good to her,” he 
told himself. “ Before God I can swear that she had 
no just cause to leave me! ” 

237 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

He grew even more wounded, angry, humiliated, 
depressed. It seemed that she did not mean to write 
to him after all. The mood, so incomprehensible to 
him, which had carried her away, was more than 
a gust of temper; it endured. Was she hard after 
all ? His passion answered that she was more than 
hard, that she lacked a sense. He had chosen an ab- 
normal nature with his eyes open, in a cold spirit 
of curiosity, and he was paying, as, once upon a 
time, a woman had paid for knowledge. 

“ That she did not love me, I must forgive her, ,, 
he told himself. “ But that she left me like this I 
will never forgive.” 

He turned to his book. The work he had been 
engaged upon night and day, no longer appealed to 
him. Latterly he had been sustained in an effort 
of imagination by the feverishness Alice’s propin- 
quity had bred in him ; the pages upon which he had 
bestowed his labour now lay before him lifeless and 
cold. He could not animate these still figures of his 
creation again. The woman was not real ; his mind 
and heart alike disowned her. She was as dead as 
the hope he had once entertained of gaining his wife’s 
love. By-and-by, when his emotions were under 
control, and the first pang was passed, he would be 
able to finish his task, no doubt ; and the result would 
please the public, who were always his kind ad- 
mirers. Perhaps one or two critics in London would 
238 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

discover that the end lacked the conviction of the 
beginning, and that the author had lost grip of his 
subject; but the book would sell as well as usual, 
his publishers would be delighted, and — he need 
never see the fruit of his agonized labour again. 

“ If it were indeed the masterpiece I had hoped, 
has it not cost me too dear?” he queried, bitterly. 
“ I have paid for it in blood — in blood ! And it 
fails!” 

He was wrong, it did not fail ; but he was not in 
a mood to judge an achievement of his own fairly. 
He was passing through an experience which could 
not fail to leave its mark on any man. He was sore 
with his God and humanity; forced to acknowledge 
what no one cares to do : that he had made a foolish 
marriage. Looking back now, he could not con- 
ceive how any enthusiasm for his art had been able 
to urge him to such a step. That he had misread 
her temperament was humiliating enough; but he 
had misunderstood himself as well ; he had believed 
himself above passion, done with it : he had started to 
survey mankind from aloft as a god on Olympus, 
and had fallen to earth and to a woman’s feet with a 
shock which had sent him reeling for two days, and 
would take toll of his emotions all his life. 

It was in the irony of things that Laura, whom 
he had once loved, should call upon him one after- 
noon. Conventionally she had asked for Alice, and 
239 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


received a stammering explanation of Mrs. Ver- 
schoyle’s absence which she did not trouble herself 
to understand. It was enough for her that Anthony 
was at home alone, and she came upon him in his 
study, where he lurked like a wounded bear, as radi- 
ant a figure as her widowhood would allow. Jet 
gleamed on her like the links of black armour or 
the scales of a snake ; her red hair was an aureole to 
trap the sunlight, and her sapphire eyes melted in 
greeting of the man. 

“ So glad to find you in,” she said. 

“ Ah, my dear Laura.” 

He presented a pained smile to her greeting — 
would rather have seen the devil at this moment than 
Mrs. Standish. Women’s curiosity, hers in particu- 
lar; he knew it. She would question and question 
till he hated her. 

“ Are you quite well ? ” she asked, in deep con- 
cern. 

“ Yes. Why do you ask? Do I look ill? ” 

“ Why weren’t you at the Saundersons’ to lunch ? 
I know you were asked, and they expected you. I 
was afraid you must be ill, and came most anxiously 
to inquire, as you perceive.” 

“ It was very good of you. ’Pon my soul I can- 
not offer any excuse for my absence, beyond saying 
that I forgot all about the engagement.” 

“ It is natural,” admitted Laura, “ and pardon- 
240 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

able that your memory for such trifles should be bad. 
But why, in heaven’s name, doesn’t your wife look 
after you ? She has nothing else to do.” 

Anthony regarded her strangely. 

“ Are you sure there is nothing the matter ? ” she 
asked. 

“ What can there be the matter ? ” He shrugged 
and smiled. “ Don’t I look quite well ? My head 
doesn’t ache. I have no pains in my limbs. I am 
not feverish! I must apologize to Mrs. Saunder- 
son ; but we are such old friends that the task is not 
formidable.” 

“ Certainly you are a queer fellow,’’ she said, with 
musing tone and eyes. “How’s Alice?” 

“ Very well, I believe.” 

“ I met an old friend from India yesterday,” she 
added. “ Major Duncan. I wonder if you know 
him? ” 

“ I don’t think I can boast of the pleasure.” 

“ We were at Simla together last year,” she said. 
“ He adores me still.” 

“ Am I to congratulate you ? ” 

“ I believe,” she said, rousing herself from a 
dream, “ that you are being sarcastic. It is a bad 
habit I should not have allowed you to acquire if I 
had had the management of you ! . . . But I am 
sure that he will propose. Shall I accept him, An- 
thony?” 


241 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ That is a question which only your own heart 
can answer, surely ? ” 

“ Heart! heart !" she repeated, pettishly. “You 
are not writing a tale now, and I want common- 
sense, not sentiment, of you. Of course, there is 
no question of ‘ heart ’ about it. I don't dislike him, 
that is all, and he has money." She fidgeted with 
the ferrule of her sunshade on the rug. “ I must 
live." 

“ Yes," he said, after a moment. “ It is all a 
matter of temperament. I dare say you would do 
very well." 

He had been answering a thought of his own more 
than her question, and she stared at him. 

“ What are you talking about ? " 

“ Was I obscure? Your pardon! I meant to re- 
mark that some women are fools enough to break 
their hearts over a loveless marriage; but that you 
are too sensible not to find ample compensation in an 
establishment." 

“ Do I deserve that — of you, Anthony ? " she 
asked, with a sudden liquid note of tenderness. 
“ Have I always shown myself so coldly prudent? " 

“ Forgive me," he said, gently. “ I— I am out 
of temper with the world, Laura, that is all. You 
are right; you know how to love." 

The unconscious accent on the pronoun would 
have told her much if she had not known already 
242 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

how it was between his wife and him. Her eyes 
gleamed. Her nature was not big enough to pity 
him unreservedly. He had tried to be happy with- 
out her, to console himself : she could never forgive 
that. 

And perhaps, though she did not taunt him, she 
had come to-day with some vague hope of stirring 
him to jealousy. That he showed none caused her 
chagrin, but made the step she had almost decided 
upon easier to take. It was certain that she had 
lost him for ever ; under those circumstances, an es- 
tablishment, as he suggested, would be her only 
consolation. 

“ But still you think,” she resumed, restlessly, 
“ that I should do well to marry? ” 

“ Frankly, I see no other future for you.” 

“ Yes, you are frank,” she said, with a bitter 
little laugh, “ and indifferent. Well, you are right. 
What is the use of wishing for ever for the moon? 
One cannot have the moon — but one can have dia- 
monds and a carriage, and a new frock when one 
likes ! ” She held out her gloved hand to him. 
“ Good-bye. I am sure I don’t know why I came,” 
she added. “ I didn’t really think that you were ill ! ” 

He smiled, accompanying her to the door; she 
was as an open book to him in these days, and yet 
once he had found her as great and alluring a mys- 
tery as his wife ! 


243 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ I hope Major Duncan will be a success.” 

“ Oh, perhaps I shan’t take him after all,” she 
said, flippantly. “I am a creature of whims, and 
the shape of his moustache may annoy me the next 
time we meet. Good-bye, again.” 

Anthony returned to his study and his black 
mood. 

“ I wish I could console myself with — diamonds,” 
he mused, “ or persuade myself that I could. My 
God, what — what has become of that girl? I can’t 
stand this silence any longer; I shall have to look 
for her, at some sacrifice of dignity maybe. After 
all it is a duty. Can I let her have her head in this 
fashion? She must explain herself, there must be 
some decent arrangement, a provision made for her. 
Does she think I want her to work for her living 
again, because it suits her to leave me ? ” 

In the morning he set a private inquiry office on 
her track, although he loathed the only expedient 
within his reach, and waited impatiently for the 
result, which he did not doubt. To his surprise there 
was a check, a baulk. Nobody knew the number of 
the cab which had taken her away, and the detective 
could not trace her. 

Two weeks passed — three. Anthony grew very 
anxious. At moments horrible ideas crossed his 
mind. Morbidness was in her blood; and it might 
be that she had conceived a dislike of him even 


244 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

greater than she had shown. Was it possible that 
she had made away with herself to escape from 
him ? He suffocated, sweated, with a growing 
dread. He was no longer angry with her; he only 
craved to hear that she was alive. 

She had taken little trouble to hide herself, think- 
ing that he would be glad enough of an excuse to 
let her go. That he failed to find her was one of 
those chances which make up life. If she had laid 
an elaborate scheme for secrecy, she could not have 
disappeared more utterly from his sight. He found 
himself left, at last, with the sole resource of ad- 
vertising for her, and his pride shrank for many 
days from that. For to address her in a way she 
could not fail to understand, would be to give their 
secret to every one who knew them, and he still 
hugged it, despising himself for the weakness of his 
shame. He had lied to his friends about her absence ; 
he was afraid to lie outright to the servants, in case 
they knew more than they had admitted to him ; but 
his behaviour was a lie, his assumed cheerfulness 
at meal-times, his pitiable suggestion that she had 
gone on a visit, and was coming back. 


245 


Chapter XXIII 

T HE window was open, and a pot of mignon- 
ette stood on the sill, mingling its perfume 
with the scent of the sea. In an arm-chair, 
supported by pillows, sat Alice. For three days she 
had hovered between life and death; for as many 
weeks she had lain like a rag, without strength to 
move or any desire to live. But she was young, and 
health was coming back. The nurse had gone yes- 
terday. 

This afternoon was the first she had spent out of 
bed since her illness, and the delicacy of her ap- 
pearance heightened her attractiveness. Her com- 
plexion, dazzlingly clear, was tinged with trans- 
parent pink; her eyes were bright; and her well- 
shaped hands lay on her lap, blue-veined and dainty. 
She looked like a flower in her white dressing-gown. 

Her life had been preserved — for what? A clever 
and devoted doctor had brought her back to the 
world, but she was not grateful. At first she had 
existed as a plant exists, absorbing nourishment 
almost unconsciously, passing the long quiet days on 
246 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the borderland of sleep, incapable of effort, of se- 
quent or concentrated thought. But leaving her 
bedroom was an event which marked her return to 
the existence she would have been glad to escape. 
Already the old pain was reviving. 

She was only twenty-three, and at a time when 
women who are beloved are surrounded by those 
who love them, she had been forlorn among strang- 
ers. If she had died, who would have cared ? They 
would have buried her with as little concern as they 
had buried her baby, and when Anthony had heard 
of it at last, it would have been with relief, perhaps, 
that the gordian knot of his ill-advised marriage 
was untied. 

A few tears of weakness and self-pity welled to 
her eyes with these reflections, and rolled down. 
She was used to the many noises of the city, and the 
stillness, the solitude, the monotonous moaning of 
the sea, acutely heightened her sense of loneliness. 
When she was lying up-stairs, she had been too ill 
to notice anything or to care; her mental anguish 
had been counteracted by physical discomfort ; now 
the balance, which had quivered for a day or two 
between body and mind, sank once more on the side 
of memory. Her illness had drawn a temporary 
veil over the past, but the films were vanishing one 
by one. Life was returning to her as painfully as 
though she had been half drowned, and she suffered 
247 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

the pangs of restored animation with the same re- 
sistance, the same desire to sink back into the rest of 
unconsciousness and death. 

In a way her attitude towards Anthony had 
changed with her physical conditions. The fever 
had left her; the tropical storm had passed. It was 
grief more than passion and hatred which filled her 
heart to-day; she dwelt more on the loss his sup- 
posed infidelity had caused her, than on the wrong; 
more on her disappointed love for him than on the 
other woman’s rivalry. She was no longer afraid 
to trust herself. It had become a source of wonder 
to her how she could have found a possible solution 
of the problem, or any solace, in the idea of his 
death. Her softened mood saw in the sequel of 
their marriage almost as much reason to pity him as 
herself. For him, too, there must be sorrow. She 
did not think that he was a bad man ; she could not 
imagine any real happiness for him in sin. To care 
for this woman, and to be unable to marry her, must 
be a constant source of grief to him, heightened by 
self-reproach. 

• The next day she was allowed to get up to break- 
fast. The people of the house were kind to her, but 
she had no society, no one to talk to except during 
the half-hour of the doctor’s visit. She did not 
want anybody; she had never found comfort in 
companionship before she met Anthony. Even her 
248 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

doctor did not know who she was, or whence she 
came. 

After he had gone this morning, she sank into a 
listless and drooping attitude in her arm-chair by 
the window. A dozen luggers were skimming out 
of the harbour like a covey of quail, their brown sails 
set, and her eyes followed them blankly. On the 
beach below the window a boy was whistling, and 
the shingles crunched under his active heels. 

Once or twice during her illness, a question had 
entered her head which she had dismissed ; but the 
time had come when it must be answered. Ought 
she to let Anthony know what had happened? The 
child that had never breathed was his too. If she 
had been too ill to grieve for it, if she was too miser- 
able now in her desolation to care as, under happier 
circumstances, she would have cared, it caused her a 
strange tremor, nevertheless, to realize how closely 
their interests had been allied for once. 

Would he have loved her child? If it had lived 
would it have made a bond between them, and 
drawn him to her at last? A mist dimmed her 
sight. She did not wish to be softened towards 
him by such thoughts. He had never expressed 
any desire for a child, or even seemed to consider 
the subject. 

“ His book absorbed him,” she told herself. “ His 
book and that woman. I shall not tell him ! ” 

249 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

But she was too feeble still to be able to make up 
her mind without many painful vacillations. 
Though resentful of his right to any knowledge of 
her, it was not easy to deny the fact that her busi- 
ness in this instance was his as well. 

Her eyes were red when the landlady came in to 
lay the cloth for dinner, and she was afraid to speak. 
She cried easily, too easily. She knew that it was 
foolish to dwell upon anything unpleasant till she 
was strong again, but her thoughts were beyond the 
control of her weakened will. 

She was disinclined to eat, and would not make 
an effort to do so. She was upset, and tired, per- 
haps, with the unaccustomed exertion of getting up 
and moving about the room, and was glad to be 
helped to bed when evening came. There she lay 
and cried again, and found a star looking at her 
through a hole in the shutter, like an eye. It was 
such a long way off that it made her realize the im- 
mensity of the universe, and the smallness of her 
own share in it. She was so little, so unimportant, 
and the whole span of human life so infinitesimal, 
that it seemed absurd to make such a tragedy over 
such a small matter as herself. 

“ After all, in a few years I shall be dead,” she 
thought, “ and nothing will matter. I must be a 
philosopher.” 

Then she began to ask herself all sorts of ques- 

250 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

tions, which were not good for her health. Who 
was responsible for the baby’s death? If she had 
not worked herself into such a state over Anthony 
and Mrs. Standish, all might have gone well. But 
it was his fault, surely, that she had become so 
wretched ? He had been cruel to her ; nevertheless, 
she ought to have remembered and controlled her- 
self. 

“ I should have gone away before/’ she said, 
throwing her hot hands out of bed. “ It might have 
been all right if I had gone before.” 

She wondered what he was doing. In all prob- 
ability he was amusing himself with Laura Standish, 
and had almost forgotten that he had a wife. She 
could imagine the little jaunts, the visits to the 
theatres, the suppers, they were having together. 
Her dark head rolled on the pillow, and a lump 
grew in her throat. No, she could not communi- 
cate with him; it was impossible; he did not de- 
serve such an advance on her part. She wished she 
could go to sleep and forget for a little while. 

The next few days were wet, and the grey sky 
and the sullen sea met in a mist of rain. As sensi- 
tive to atmospheric conditions as to environment, 
the dreariness of her life and its setting was like a 
leaden weight on her breast. The inanition of a 
tired soul was in the laxity of her limbs, the droop 
of her lids and lips. There seemed to be nothing to 
251 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

look forward to. She did not know how the rest 
of her life was to be spent, and could foresee no 
alleviation of her present lot beyond that which the 
hand of time might bring. She might die young; 
she might live in poverty and loneliness as she had 
lived before her marriage; but that she and An- 
thony would come together again, was the one thing 
which seemed impossible to her. The gap between 
them could never be bridged over. She loved him 
too deeply to forgive him, even if he grew tired of 
the other woman and wished to be forgiven, which 
she did not anticipate. She had left him with the 
realization that it would be for ever. 

At this moment she could draw herself a vividly 
incorrect picture of his proceedings. He was al- 
ways with Laura Standish, not at Victoria Street, 
but at her own flat. She could almost hear their 
words of appointment, and see the kisses he gave 
the woman who was not his wife. 

“ And sometimes she mentions me — he never does 
— and laughs,” Alice told herself. “ I am sure she 
laughs, very softly, with her red hair against his 
cheek ! ” 

The door opened and the landlady appeared. 

“ I thought you’d like to look at these pictures, 
ma’am. It’s dull for you here all alone.” 

Alice took the illustrated papers, with a word of 
thanks. She had no particular interest in what was 
252 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

going on in the world that she had left, but the land- 
lady s entrance had broken a train of thought, and 
it was better to read without amusement than to 
resume her miserable meditations. She turned over 
the leaves. 

Coming presently upon the portrait of a familiar 
face, she started and exclaimed. 

It was Mrs. Standish who was represented, in a 
theatrical attitude, with head upturned in high light 
against a curtain, in order to show the excellent lines 
of chin and throat, and a liberal display of bare 
shoulders. If Alice could have doubted the identity 
of her enemy, the name was beneath to convince her. 

She was so fascinated by the features she hated 
that she did not wonder for a moment why Mrs. 
Standish’s portrait should adorn the pages of the 
Illustrated London News ; and even when her gaze 
wandered on to the companion picture, that of a 
man, she did not realize at once why it should be 
linked by a true-lover’s knot of ribbon to the lady’s. 
The explanation dawned upon her senses gradually, 
almost without surprise, by the natural processes of 
revived experience, and she read the paragraph of 
explanation, worded in the usual way, as though she 
had seen it before. 

“ Duncan — Standish.— On the 25th inst. Major 
Duncan, of the Black Watch, espoused Mrs. Laura 
253 


A PROPHET of the REAL 


Standish, relict of the late Arthur Standish of Bom- 
bay, at the Chapel Royal, Savoy. The bride, who 
is well known in Anglo-Indian society, wore a gown 
of pale heliotrope silk, trimmed with Brussels lace, 
and diamond ornaments, the gift of the bridegroom. 
The newly-wedded pair held a reception at the Hotel 
Cecil, which was attended by numerous relatives and 
friends, and afterward left for the Continent via 
Calais.” 

Alice’s heart was beating fast by this time, and 
the colour had deepened in her cheeks. 

“ Who is Major Duncan? ” she wondered. 

She put her hand to her brow to steady her brain, 
which was beginning to swim. That Mrs. Stan- 
dish should marry again, and just at this time, 
amazed and bewildered her. She had imagined an 
illicit love-story to be in progress between Anthony 
and his cousin; she had fancied them absorbed in 
each other, seizing every advantage that her flight 
had given them. And her picture had been all 
wrong, it seemed ! What did it mean ? Nothing — 
nothing could have caused her more surprise. The 
woman could not care much for Anthony if she 
were willing to become another man’s wife, and 
Anthony could not be madly, culpably in love with 
her to permit it. At least no liaison could be in ex- 
istence at present. Laura was not even in London ; 
254 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

she had left England a week ago with her husband, 
as though Anthony did not exist. And the mar- 
riage could scarcely have been unpremeditated. She 
must have been engaged, or at least thinking of this 
man, for some time. 

A multitude of fresh emotions and ideas beset her. 
The ground on which she had taken her stand was 
not solid after all. In a moment it had crumbled 
and fallen to dust, and she was confused by the 
shock of finding herself without support. Had she 
misjudged him after all? Was it possible that he 
was innocent? If there had been anything between 
the cousins, would this marriage have taken place? 
It had not occurred to her before that she might be 
mistaken. Her natural jealousy, increased by the 
state of her health, had found evidence of his in- 
fidelity in a dozen harmless actions, and a coinci- 
dence or two. But now her nerves were normal 
again, and in the new light the news she had just 
learned cast upon the past she began to re-live it, to 
analyze, to weigh and wonder at herself. What 
enormity of conduct had she brought home to him 
after all ? 

“ Did I leap to conclusions ? ” she asked herself, 
with trembling lips. “ Does his guilt exist in my 
imagination alone? Oh, my God, what have I 
done? Have I been dreaming, was I mad, or am I 
dreaming now ? ” 


255 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

The journal still lay open on her lap, and the eyes 
of the woman she hated, seemed to mock her. At 
any rate the marriage was real, and the idea that she 
might have been mistaken throughout was at least 
as probable as his guilt, which she had been so ready 
to believe. 

The more she thought about it, the stronger grew 
her feeling that her opinion of him had been unjusti- 
fied, and the greater grew her agitation. She was 
still sure that Laura was capable of anything, and 
had tried to inveigle him; but was it not possible 
that her lures had been futile? There was no evi- 
dence to the contrary, and this unexpected marriage 
dashed all former suppositions to the ground. He 
was not a boy, to be easily led away; he was not a 
fast man. There had never been anything in his 
conduct towards other women to which his wife 
could take exception, and the coldness which had 
grown up between them after Mrs. Standish’s re- 
turn, had been entirely her fault. He had been as 
affectionate as ever ; more so ; and she had snubbed 
him. 

Looking back she could scarcely conceive how she 
had convinced herself that she was wronged. As 
she sought through the past, with feverish diligence, 
for her excuse, each incident that she examined 
slipped, shadow r -like away. They had seemed matter 
for substantial grievance once, but among them all 
256 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

her eagerness for exculpation could grasp nothing 
tangible. He had called on Laura alone; what of 
that ? She was his cousin ; he was the only relative 
she possessed. He had taken her to Paris ; what of 
that? His wife had accompanied them. He had 
spent one night away from home : the frankness of 
his explanation should have convinced any woman 
in her senses that he had nothing to conceal. Laura’s 
notes had come openly ; as openly he had expressed 
his desire to serve her: was it likely that a guilty 
man would have dared so much? That afternoon, 
too, when she had called on Laura to find him there : 
what had she found so conclusive in the other wom- 
an’s tears? She remembered, with painful yearn- 
ing, that he had kissed his young wife tenderly one 
night, almost as though he loved her. He had 
meant to be kind, no doubt, and she had driven him 
away. 

Oh, the trivialities, the dreams, upon which she 
had shattered the only home she had ever known ! 

Her head dropped back on the cushions with an 
inarticulate sound; her lids closed, her forehead 
glistened, her body was bathed in heat. The sud- 
den revulsion in her mind had shaken her to the 
core. A change had come over the aspect of life — 
a change which presented elements of distress as 
well as of rejoicing. If she thrilled at the thought 
that the man she loved was worthy of her love, she 

257 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

had the consciousness for her life-long curse, that 
she had left him when she might have stayed. Of 
her own accord she had forfeited the position he had 
given her, the companionship she longed for, all her 
rights as his wife ; and it might be that he did not 
even know why she had gone. Not only had she 
thrown away all she valued in the world, she had 
repaid his generosity with insult, and worked herself 
into a state of excitement which had killed her child, 
over a nightmare born of her own morbid brain. 

It seemed to her that at last she saw things as 
they really were. She was ready to believe now 
that he had concealed nothing from her throughout. 
He was not a liar ; till that woman had entered their 
lives, she had always regarded him as a model of 
sincerity — a man too big in every way to stoop to 
petty falsehoods and deceits. What had possessed 
her to imagine that any temptation could make him 
change so much? If he had had no regard for 
honour, could he not have followed Laura to India 
long ago? Her husband need not have been a 
greater bar to their intercourse than his wife. 

“ Oh, God,” she said again, “ what have I 
done ? ” 

She shrank within herself, writhing as though 
her thoughts were flames which scorched her. Why 
had she never seen all this before? He had shown 
every confidence in her, knowing that she possessed 

258 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

antecedents which would have frightened many bet- 
ter men than George Wilson; and, instead of re- 
warding him with obedience and devotion, she had 
failed in the most ordinary duties of a wife. She 
had slandered him in her mind, she had repulsed his 
affection, she had raised a scandal by leaving him 
without any consideration of the embarrassment 
thus entailed upon a man whose life was public prop- 
erty — a man sensitive and proud. 

“ How he must hate me ! ” she whispered, quiv- 
ering. 

She had no mercy on herself. It was character- 
istic of her that her remorse should be as keen as the 
jealousy of the past. Her soul was in ‘torment. She 
could have thrown herself at his feet and licked the 
dust; it would have relieved her to do it, and die 
before he could turn away. 

She had deserted him, relinquished a state which 
appeared in retrospection like perfect happiness, and 
she deserved no pity; she would not admit that ill- 
health had been any excuse. She ought to have 
trusted him as he had trusted her, and not flown 
like a maniac to shameful conclusions without irre- 
futable evidence. 

“ If I had stayed, and the child had lived, who 
knows that I might not have won him in the end? ” 
she thought. “ He was affectionate towards me 
latterly, when I despised him for a hypocrite. Long 
259 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

use might have made me necessary to him ; what I 
wanted might have come.” 

She was working herself into a fever again. 
When the doctor came he shook his head at her. 

“ You are not nearly as well as you were yester- 
day. What have you been doing to yourself ?” 

“ Thinking,” said Alice. “ Oh, doctor, I am so 
miserable ! ” 

He was a kind man, and concerned. 

“ I am sorry,” he said. “ Can I do anything ? ” 
“ No.” 

“But you mustn’t think,” he said, “unless you 
can think cheerfully. You are not strong enough 
to take liberties with yourself.” 

He ordered her to bed, and gave her a sleeping 
draught which allowed her a blessed oblivion till 
daylight crept through the blinds. 


260 


Chapter XXIV 

S HE had the temperament which makes a fine 
art of self-torture, and her memory was pain- 
fully good. There was scarcely an incident 
of her latter days at the flat that she had forgotten. 
She was able to recall every false impression she had 
received, and the cause of it; every pang she had 
suffered; every moment of humiliation, of bitter- 
ness, of wild and passionate despair. But those 
things no longer hurt, because she knew that it was 
her own hand which had stabbed her with the 
weapon she had made. Her punishment was to be 
in the recollection of a softened look from him, a 
word of praise, a familiar touch. She had never 
felt lonely with him till this curse of jealousy had 
driven her soul back once more to its dismal isola- 
tion. He had been kind to her, very kind ; she had 
been ungrateful. She wanted to tell him so ; longed 
for some act of penance which should prove that she 
realized her sin of the understanding. So few peo- 
ple had been good to her in all her life. It would 
ease her conscience, comfort her a little, to say that 
she was sorry. She owed him an apology, at least, 
after all he had done for her. 

261 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

She wondered if she ought to write to him. As 
the idea took shape, she evolved many phrases of 
remorse. A feebler nature would have suffered 
most on self-interest’s side: she had wronged him; 
her own shamefulness pained her even more acutely 
than the price of the mistake. 

In a month he had heard nothing of her. What 
story had he told his friends? She had left him in 
a position worse than awkward. However little he 
cared for her, she was his wife, and it was necessary 
for them to meet if it were only to discuss the future 
which concerned them both. The interview would 
be very painful, but she did not mean to spare her- 
self. After some reflection she decided to send him 
her address, and ask him to come down. 

Directly the letter was gone she would have given 
her right hand to recall it. There was not only her 
desertion between them; suppose he reproached her 
about the child ? 

There was so much that he might say, and al- 
though she had no experience of how he would re- 
sent a deep affront, she conceived him to be a man 
not able to forgive easily. At the best he would be 
quietly bitter, and stab her with words she would 
never be able to forget. 

In all her life, unhappy as the greater part of it 
had been, she had not felt quite the same sort of de- 
pression that she felt to-day. There had always 
262 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

been passion, resentment, the defiance of an injured 
soul to raise her, through pride, to the pedestal of 
martyrdom. She was no longer a victim; the 
grandeur of her tragedy had gone. Every comfort 
had been given her — ease of body and mind, the 
world’s consideration, all the refinements of life 
with a man of culture, intellect, sympathy. She 
might have been the mother of his child, his confi- 
dante, his friend, at least; but her intelligence, of 
which she had once been proud, had not been strong 
enough to stand the smallest strain. She had be- 
haved with the vulgarity of an inferior mind, the 
folly of a housemaid. 

As the day passed her shrinking grew. There 
would be only one scene, and probably it would be 
short; but she could not steel herself to meet it. 
She wanted to hide. In a cowardly moment it even 
occurred to her to pack and leave before he could 
arrive. It would be a relief if he did not come at 
all. He might be as reluctant to see her as she 
was to see him. 

She passed a restless, agitated night, and showed 
it in the morning. She could hardly swallow food, 
and a caller at the door brought her heart to her 
mouth. The uncertainty was very trying. 

It was dusk when the garden gate clanged, and 
a man’s step crunched the gravel of the path. In a 
moment she heard Anthony’s voice in the hall, and 
263 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

her head swam as the handle turned, and she rose 
dizzily. 

His face was as white as hers, and set. 

“ So you have deigned to take some notice of me 
at last ! ” he said. “ What have I done to deserve 
such treatment, Alice ? ” 

“ I am glad to see you,” she murmured. “ It was 
kind of you to respond so quickly. I — I thought 
we ought to have an explanation.” 

“ Any explanation will have to come from your 
side,” he said. “ I have nothing to explain. Your 
conduct is a mystery to me — a mystery which I have 
scarcely the patience to discuss.” 

“ You received the note I left behind? ” she asked, 
faintly. 

“ I did, and failed to understand it.” 

“ Are you sure that you did not understand it? ” 
she said. “ Oh, are you quite, quite sure? ” 

He looked at her hard, with stern, unfaltering 
eyes. 

“ Of course I am sure.” 

“ It conveyed nothing at all to your mind ? ” 

“ Nothing. I did not know what was the matter 
with you then, and I don’t know now,” he said. “ I 
was as good a husband to you as any man could have 
been. You had no grievance, not the slightest le- 
gitimate excuse for leaving me as you did. If you 
regretted our marriage, and found my company in- 
264 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

supportable, you might have told me so at least, and 
we could have arranged a separation amicably. You 
went without warning. It was insolent as well as 
cruel.” 

“ I didn’t regret the marriage; it wasn’t that. I 
made a mistake, Anthony,” she said, in a curiously 
subdued tone. “ I made a dreadful mistake. I 
knew it on the day I wrote to you. I was jealous; 
you didn’t guess that, did you ? ” 

“ Jealous ! ” he repeated, sharply. “ Jealous of 
what — of whom ? ” 

“ I thought you were deceiving me with Mrs. 
Standish.” 

“ What put that idea into your head? It is ab- 
solutely untrue ! ” 

“ It seemed to me that she cared for you, and that 
you had cared for her — once.” 

“ We will not talk about that,” he said. “ What 
happened long ago is no concern of yours. I have 
never been unfaithful to you, and — she married 
again the other day.” 

Alice’s hands locked nervously; she gazed at him 
with parted lips. She did not doubt him. She had 
been prepared to believe everything he said before 
he came. 

“ Yes, I read of her marriage,” she said. “ It 
was then that I realized my mistake. Oh, I have 
behaved badly, I know! I admit that you have 
265 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

cause to be angry; but were the circumstances of 
our marriage no excuse ? I thought you considered 
that a home, your name, was good enough for the 
woman who sold herself. I thought you considered 
I had no right to complain of anything you chose to 
do, since love and respect were not mentioned in the 
bargain.” 

“ I cannot understand whence you derived such 
an impression,” he said. “ Did I neglect you ? At 
least you might have spoken to me, given me a 
chance to defend myself.” 

“ I wanted to avoid a scene. I should have said 
things then, and you would have said things, which 
would have aroused the worst passions in me. At 
the best I should have been vulgar, unwomanly; 
and I did not wish to have reason to be ashamed of 
myself.” 

“ Then I am to presume that your conduct has 
left you lapped in self-satisfaction?” 

“ No,” she said piteously. “ I am sorry, I am 
sorry ! I beg your pardon. I only wrote to you in 
the hope that you would give me the opportunity of 
begging your pardon.” 

“ If you had asked me,” he said, “ I could have 
told you a month ago that Laura had accepted this 
man. If you had approached me in a proper spirit 
at the first, I could have proved to you that your 
suspicions were unfounded. You treated me in- 
266 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

famously. You gave me insult in return for unfal- 
tering kindness.” 

“ I read your book,” she said. “ It was that 
which put such horrible ideas into my head. I 
thought, as the beginning was true, that it was all 
true about — about the other woman and the rest.” 

“ The book ! When did you read it last ? ” 

“ I read it when you were out one day,” she said. 
“ I unlocked your drawer with one of my own keys. 
I knew I was doing wrong, but I could not resist. 
It fascinated me; it put hell-fire into my veins. You 
were so sure that the daughter would follow in the 
mother’s footsteps that you made me fear myself.” 

He started, the torrent of his anger stemmed, and 
regarded her strangely; a little colour came into 
his face. 

“You cared so much?” he said, in a low tone 
of wonder. 

“Yes, and more — and more!” she cried, wildly. 
“ Oh, you can think what you like of me now ! I 
know it is all over. I know you won’t take me back. 
I don’t ask it. I don’t want it.” Her voice shook. 
“ It is better to be alone than to live with a man who 
is indifferent. I was tortured. I did not dare to 
watch — to stay. If you had guessed perhaps you 
would have pitied me a little, although my suspicions 
insulted you.” 

The flicker in his eyes grew to a flame. He drew 
267 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

a deep quivering breath, and made a movement as 
though to go to her — a movement which he checked. 

“ And I imagined, naturally, that you went be- 
cause you hated me,” he said. “ Ah, you treated 
me badly, Alice! Jealousy I could have pardoned; 
I should have been glad, God knows, to find that you 
were not as indifferent to me as you seemed. But 
you hid your grievance, you brooded apart as though 
I were your enemy, or a blackguard whom it was 
hopeless to reproach. Can you say with truth that 
I have ever told you a lie or deceived you in the 
smallest trifle, that I have not always shown you 
sympathy, that there has been a single thing in my 
conduct, during our married life, to justify yours? ” 

She sank into her chair, and cried. 

“ I deserve every bitter thing you can utter, and 
more,” she said. “ Be gentle with me, all the same. 
I am still weak. I have been ill.” 

“ Not seriously? ” 

“Yes — very, very ill,” she whispered. “It — 

died.” 

He stood quite still, staring at her. 

“ What died ? ” he asked, slowly. 

“ The child.” 

“Ah, you told me nothing! ” His voice broke; 
his forehead was wet. “ If I had guessed ! ” 

“ Did you ask ? Did you care ? The man who 
doesn’t care never guesses.” 

268 


A PROPHET of the REAL 

“ O my God, and you were all alone ! " 

Her face was averted. She sat with her hands 
linked loosely in her lap, and her eyes far away on 
the sea. 

“ It didn't matter. If I had stayed it might have 
been worse. I was in a morbid, dangerous state of 
mind. I took everything too seriously. And I am 
used to being alone. I have always been alone." 

He strode forward, and knelt, and put his arms 
round her with ineffable tenderness. 

“ How is it possible," he said, “ that you do not 
know I love you ? " 

She gasped as though her heart were heaving to 
her lips. She looked him in the eyes, and under- 
stood at last. 

“ You love me!" 

“ I tried to show it, but you would not let me. I 
could not imagine that you did not know.” 

“ Oh, how I have tortured myself, Anthony," she 
sobbed. 

She bent forward, and they kissed each other. It 
was their true marriage. 


THE END 


269 
















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Z ORDS OF THE NORTH is a thrilling romance 
dealing with the rivalries and intrigues of The Ancient 
and Honorable Hudson's Bay and the North-West 
Companies for the supremacy of the fur trade in the 
Great North. It is a story of life in the open ; of 
pioneers and trappers. The life of the fur traders in 
Canada is graphically depicted. The struggles of the Selkirk 
settlers and the intrigues which made the life of the two great 
for trading companies so full of romantic interest, are here 
laid bare. Francis Park man and other historians have 
written of the discovery and colonization of this part of our 
great North American continent, but no novel has appeared 
so full of life and vivid interest as Lords of the North. 
Much valuable information has been obtained from old docu- 
ments and the records of the rival companies which wielded 
unlimited power over a vast extent of our country. The 
style is admirable, and the descriptions of an untamed conti- 
nent, of vast forest wastes, rivers, lakes and prairies, will 
place this book among the foremost historical novels of the 
present day. The struggles of the English for supremacy, 
the capturing of frontier posts and forts, and the life of trader 
and trapper are pictured with a master’s hand. Besides 
being vastly interesting. Lords of the North is a book of his- 
torical value. ^ __ 

Cloth, Svo, $1.50 


J. F. TAYLOR C&. COMPANY 

3 Sr 7 EAST SIXTEENTH ST., NEW YORK 


White Butterflies 

By RATE UPSON CLARK. 

ClotH, 8vo, $1,525 

MARY E. W1LHINS 

“The stories are marvellous. I feel as though I were constantly find- 
ing another vein of gold. The dramatic power in some of them has never 
been excelled in any American short stories. 1 Solly' is a masterpiece." 

ANSON JUDD UPSON, D.D., L.L.D., 

Chancellor of The Univ. of New YorK 

“Your stories are just what I like. Your characters are exceedingly 
vivid. I cannot too warmly commend the simplicity and purity of your 
style, the vividness of your characters and the general construction of the 
stories.” 

MARGARET E. SANGSTER 

“It seems to me that no stories, long or short, have appeared, which 
illustrate more perfectly than these what we have in mind when we use, in 
a literary sense, the term ‘ Americanism.' The atmosphere of these beau- 
tiful tales is truthfully varied to suit every locality described, but everywhere 
the standards and ideals are set alike. A sound, healthful Americanism, 
just what we wish the word to mean, pervades them all.” 

St. Louis Globe-Democrat 

“It is not art ; it is genius.” 

The Nation 

“It is unusual to find so wide a range of scene and person in one col- 
lection of short stories. In each of these a strongly dramatic incident is in- 
troduced, ringing both true and real.” 

Mail and Express 

“Many a nugget of wisdom, many a bit of homely philosophy, and 
enough humor to leaven the whole. ’ ' 

"Western Club Woman 

“Full of exquisite pathos, a tenderness, a delicacy of touch not often 
equalled. The art is perfect. ” 

Chicago Evening Post 

“Mrs. Clark is entitled to the thanks of a reading public.” 


J. F. TAYLOR CEL COMPANY 

5 Sr 7 EAST SIXTEENTH ST.. NEW YORK 


SEP 3 0 1302 




SEP. 30 1902 





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